KING GEORGE

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 19 November 1927, Page 9

KING GEORGE

T; HOUGH King George V. is one of the busiest and most hard-working- men in England, he has always loved shoot-ing.-riding and racing, and it will never be forgotten that before he came to the throne he was one of the best five shots of a nation of sportsmen, writes Sir Theodore Cook in "The Field,” There are very few, even today, who are better. The King always had the appreciative eve of the countryman and tinnaturalist, and he has loved Highland scenery, the changing hues of moor stubble, all his life. That is the foundation of all his first-rate excellence with a gun; and such good judges as Lord Ripon or Lord Walsingham always appreciated the fact if they were asked to estimate the excellence, of King George when he was Prince of Wales. He was slightly better and quicker (and is still) at driven partridges, than at pheasants, though, of course, his percentage of kills was not so high as at the easier game. Rut those who' knew him best always felt that, apart from any cold judicial estimate of sheer skill, he actually loved grouse better than anything, because of the moors, aild deer driving at Balmoral. Apart from the partridge, pheasant and grouse I have already mentioned, the King is equally good with wild duck at Sandringham, teal at Netherby, snipe in Galway, and. above all. woodcock on Lord Ardilauivs place at Lough Mask. Just, thirty-four years ago he got a right and left at cock during a beat at Sandringham, and accounted for no less than sixteen out of a total of thirty-six. The year before he had killed in Glen Gelder a magnificent ten-pointer weighing 21 stone 111 b, one of the finest recorded at Balmoral. The Kingholds his gun with his left arm straight and fully extended towards the muzzle, which brings the gun up quickly and swings it easily on a crossing or high bird, the fore-arm being exactly in a line beneath the barrels. Few people could do the same even if they had his sure eye, his rapid and steady hand and his alert brain. Few could do so even to-day with such continuing success, for if the King’s hand is not quite as quick as it was, his eye seems to be just as good as ever as his shooting at Sandringham last season has plainly proved. As admiral of the Royal Yacht Squadron, the King was not merely inheriting an official title from his father; he was a sailor perfectly at home in any craft, upon the sea and he is probably the only English King who has not only "ruled the waves” hut met them in a gale as captain of a destroyer off the Irish coast; even before he succeeded to the throne he had been commodore of the Royal St. George Yacht Club. The tradition is as old at least as Charles 11. William IV. and Queen Victoria were great patrons of the sport. For King- Edward. W arson built his beautiful Britannia, still a winner and still one of the stuanchest boats afloat.

> A SKILLED SPORTSMAN

EXPERT WITH GUN AND ROD

King George’s boat oil the Solent in 1895 was a 1-rater, which was built by Mr Sibbick, of Cowes, in eight days and called the White Rose. She was dish-shaped, with a metal fin and lead bulb, and the. hull was built with planks bent around moulds, the little frames being put in afterwards. She started twenty-six times, and won three first prizes and eight flags in a class which often had a dozen or eighteen starters. Tie began in R-.Y.S. with the yawl Corisanda. But it is, of course, the Britannia in which he does all his racing nowadays. The same love of nature has led King George to be almost as happy after a salmon, when fishing down a pool at Abergeldie, as he is on the hill after a deer, or on the Solent in a closehauled race. With the pick of all good things at his disposal, he loves a' game which has no artificiality about it, in which the man with rod may either have a crown or not, but is treated precisely the same by the fish at the other end of the line; its moods, its intelligence, its appetites, its movements, have all to be studied not merely with knowledge but with patience. Mere manual dexterity is not enough. There is an uncertainty about the sport, a constant anticipation of constantly withdrawn reward, which makes it eminently fitted for the pastime of a busy monarch; and the King is as beloved among his freshwater comrades for the help he has given their own game almost as much as he is revered by the sea fishermen for his sailorlike qualities aboard a yacht.

The King is very fond of watching polo, and is himself a good rider; hut on the turf he has never tried to emulate his father’s magnificent record. His first success on the turf was Pintadeau, winner of the Fitzwilliam Stakes at Doncaster, where the "Yorkshire roar” was sufficient evidence of the continuing popularity of the Royal colours. But the state of Europe and of England since 1912 have rightly decided King George to limit his personal activities on the turf almost entirely to looking on, which he always most thoroughly enjoys, and no doubt he is waiting for the day when his eldest son will follow in his grandfather’s footsteps.

Much of the same must nowadays be said of hunting; for, though both the Duke of Beaufort’s and the Norfolk and the Lestershire packs f*w King George when he was Prince of Wales, he now has little’time to spare for a sport which must be done thoroughly or not at all and would take more of his time than ho could eonseientiouslv afford.

He always rides a great deal whenever ho is out of London, and is never seen at greater advantage than on horseback, as those can testify who remember him on Kildare or Rupert before the war. Sport is the life blood of England. and in George V. we have a King who know’s it and has given us all the lead we love to follow.