NOTABLE MILESTONE

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31277, 25 January 1967, Page 11

NOTABLE MILESTONE

WHEN Mrs W. Oakley, ” wife of a Hororata farmer, finished third equal in the B grade of the South Island .303 rifle championships at West Melton last month she passed the most notable milestone in her lifetime of competitive shooting.

With rifle shooting a part of her family background, and a Ballinger Belt-winning husband to encourage her, the success should not have been too surprising. But it was achieved after a poor morning round at the 300yard range which left her seven points down. In the afternoon she lost only three points and won both matches. A possible (50) at 500 yards was her first in a championship. But for the poor morning round which was pardonable in the cold ,grey conditions, Mrs Oakley would probably have joined her life-long friend, Mrs R. E. Taylor, as the only woman A grade championship competitor in Canterbury.

Mrs Oakley began shooting competitively in 1936, the year that her busband-to-be formed the Haldon Miniature Rifle Club which held its competitions in a wool-shed on Mr J. Clucas’s property. The sport was very popular at the time; the Haldon club had up to 40 members and the neighbouring Hororata club numbered some 20 more.

Mrs Oakley recalled that some of the Haldon members came from the Greendale side of the Selwyn river and

were sufficiently keen, even on the frostiest nights, to wade through the chilled water when the ford was not open.

“In recent times with the onset of table tennis and miniature bowling the popularity of miniature rifle shooting waned, and abdut five years ago the Hororata and Haldon clubs amalgamated,” she said. There are now about 12 members in the club. Two of them are Oakleys. For 13 years Mrs Oakley was secretary of the Malvern Smallbore Rifle Association and a member of its teams in inter-association shoots.

In 1954, her husband, who had been shooting competitively with .303's for 25 years, and Mr C. R. J. Glassey (Springfield), were the prime movers in forming the Malvern (.303) Rifle Club. The club has since become noted for its family participation and membership has included three pairs of husbands and wives as well as fathers, sons and brothers.

Two years ago Mrs Oakley concluded a 10-year term as assistant to her husband, who was the club’s secretary.

To both, rifle shooting has been almost a way of life and it is with reluctance that they forego competition in October (because of lambing) and January (harvesting). Mr Oakley, who has made several rifle shooting trips to Australia, is well known

in both countries for his skill, particularly with the .303. His best year was 1949 in which he won New Zealand’s Ballinger Belt and the New South Wales King’s Prize.

In 1960 Mrs Oakley accompanied her husband for the first time overseas. She was an on-looker when Mr Oakley competed in national meetings at Bisley, Glasgow and Ottawa, but the tour proved of great benefit to them both.

They were standing in a queue outside the Tower of London when they met a married Australian couple. A friendship developed, visits were later exchanged between Hororata and Tintinara (South Australia), and Mrs Oakley became so impressed with her friends’ successful efforts at breaking in an area of scrub land that she wrote a book on the subject. The book, Mrs Oakley’s first, was published last November.