We burned the old target bosses on Sunday. It’s a club ritual every year. A Windsor round, a barbeque, some red wine, the gathering gloom, and the five or six oldest, most shot-out straw bosses on the fire, along with all the dead wood and leaves off the field and the broken boss stands. Once you snip the strings, they unravel like snakes.

This time, there was a howling wind (the night would see the worst storm in Britain for a while) and the lot went up ferociously. A couple of the local residents came along to see the monster burn, and seemed surprised that we were an archery club rather than some kind of southern Beltane celebrators.

“So, is this so you guys have good luck with your arrows for the year?”

“Yes, yes, I suppose so.”