GBRT : South Africa 2012

Compared to many of the team, Iain came late to fullbore shooting.  The first visit to Bisley was for the RAF Skill-at-Arms meeting in 1978.  In amongst all the machine-guns and pistols, there was a Target Rifle match, and the ‘expert’ handed Iain an L39 with the words “treat it like an overgrown .22”.  One fat lip later and having kept the score literally on the back of a fag packet found in the firing point ditch, Iain was hooked.  After 10 years of practice with the RAF Target Rifle Club, Iain made his first appearance for Scotland in the 1988 National Match.   About the same time the RAF started Iain on international touring with visits to Australia, Kenya, Germany and Jersey.   

Chris Hockley toured South Africa with GB in 1993, and decided on a rerun for the RAF in 1994.  The team was fairly successful in shooting and hugely successful in socialising with Iain being an enthusiast for both.  So much so that he was ill-advised enough to volunteer as manager for the RAFs second tour in 1996, and again for the 1998 tour.  That tour opened with a stay in Potchefstroom for the Northwest Bisley, and one warm evening Iain went for a stroll round a moonlit lake with a gorgeous girl called Karen. Iain and Karen were married in 1999 and have returned to South Africa to shoot almost every year since, sometimes as individuals but also with teams from Scotland, Ireland and the RAF.  Iain and Karen travelled together on Iain’s first GB tour, to Canada in 2002.  Having been left behind for Iain’s second GB tour to Kenya and Namibia, and thus robbed of a chance to see a leopard in the wild, Karen decided that Iain would only go on accompanied tours.  She also decided that Iain needed organising, and is travelling as Team Manager.

Despite having been to South Africa on at least 15 occasions, Iain is having kittens at the prospect of leading GB.  If the kittens turn out to be leopard cubs, that will at least keep Karen happy.