Shooting organisations could hardly believe their good fortune when the good-looking, likeable and media-friendly Peter Wilson pulled off the performance of his life in the double-trap shooting competition to win gold for Great Britain and add to a record tally of medals for the nation at London 2012.
Suddenly a sport – which encompasses everything from small boys 'plinking' with an air rifle in the back garden to billionaires wielding matched pairs of 12-bores on the grouse moors – had a splendid new advocate. Wilson has not disappointed. From an early appearance on BBC's Question of Sport to a day at last month's CLA Game Fair, attended by over 120,000 people, he has put the hours in, spoken up for shooting sports and surely done more than anyone could have expected to encourage more youngsters to take up the sport.
Recently, as a small 'thank you' from the UK's biggest shooting membership organisation, the British Association of Shooting and Conservation, he was awarded honorary life membership. A BASC spokesman said: "Peter has significantly helped to raise the profile of shooting as a result of his Olympic success and emphasised the importance of young people taking up the sport. In recognition of his victory, he was presented with his life membership by BASC chairman Martyn Howat, at the CLA Game Fair on July 20, 2013, at Ragley Hall in Warwickshire."
Wilson's response was to speak of his surprise and thanks – and to praise BASC. "BASC have done a fantastic job for shooting and conservation and I hope to help promote shooting to the wider public for as long as possible," he said.
BASC chief executive Richard Ali, who has recently taken over the top job in the organisation and is set to make some changes, also aimed at improving the broader image of shooting, returned the praise. He said: "I would like to congratulate Peter on his honorary life membership to BASC. His success in the 2012 Olympics has inspired many more people to take up shooting; I hope individuals will be motivated by Peter's remarkable achievement and that it will encourage them to be ambitious within their own shooting and conservation work."
So is this mutual appreciation between a shooting organisation and the sport's brightest new advocate, the mark of a new era in which shooting sports – seen by many as cruel, dangerous and elitist – get the recognition they deserve? Many will be hoping so.
With the Game Fair over and grouse shooting about to start, we are approaching the beginning of the shooting season proper. There are no grouse moors in the Westcountry but partridge shooting begins on September 1 and the pheasant – the main quarry species in the Westcountry – joins the legal quarry list a month later on October 1. Already pigeon shooters, who can target woodpigeons for crop protection year round, are busy in the fields keeping numbers down as cereal crops mature.
Although Wilson is a specialist in target shooting, specifically double-trap, he grew up on his family's Dorset farm, where his father breeds racehorses, shooting pigeons and rabbits and is still a fan of live quarry shooting, certainly the most controversial aspect of the sport among the largely urban population of Britain.
Game shooters, pigeon shooters, wildfowlers and even rifle-shooters who target deer, will welcome the fact that Wilson extends his promotion of shooting sports across the spectrum and doesn't just seek to raise the profile of clay shooting. He is, for example, the new face of Holland and Holland, the elite English gun-makers and creators of fine game shooting guns.
In truth almost all target shooters also shoot game, just as game shooters often spend a bit of time on the clay ground to keep their eye in during the closed season. The lines between the two are very blurred indeed. BASC and others, including the pro-shooting Countryside Alliance, will be hoping the Wilson effect not only draws in more to shooting sports in general, but softens attitudes across the population in general, even among those who will never shoot.
Shooting has suffered over many years from a negative view in some quarters, particularly live quarry shooting. In Peter Wilson, BASC and others believe it has an individual who can help to win more friends to the sport and build on the success Britain enjoys, in competition and – crucially – in the countryside where shooting sports play an increasingly important role in boosting the economy and improving the environment.
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