Gun Baby Gun: A Bloody Journey Into the World of the Gun

Author:Iain Overton [Overton, Iain]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Criminology, Anthropology, Cultural
ISBN: 9781782113430
Google: QOY_BgAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1782113436
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-04-15T23:00:00+00:00

The lodge lay about an hour from Cradock, a town of over 35,000 serving the farmers and traders of the districts that ran along the Great Fish River. Cradock had begun its life as a military outpost and was lined with neat, modest homes and wood-fronted shops selling the basics to live in this hard land. I had come here, to the western region of the Eastern Cape of South Africa, the poorest of all of South Africa’s nine provinces, to go on a hunting safari.

Cradock was the last town before the Veld, empty but for the endless grass and, for me, animals to hunt. The town had the feeling of a place once filled with people who would have fought for something passionately. Today, though, it seemed those who lived here could not recall exactly what they would have fought for. It was a forgotten place. Perhaps a sense of self-belief died with the killings of four young South African activists here in 1985 – shot by white security police in the darkest days of apartheid. I had meant to see a memorial commemorating them, but the rain had come down hard from nowhere, submerging the view of the city. Instead, I edged through the crawling traffic until I found a sign that read Route 61 and pulled over to get my bearings.

The name places here spoke of a Boer past: Graaff-Reinet, Hofmeyr, Sterkstroom. This land, with its rolling, fertile expanse, the sky huge over it, was to the Afrikaner God’s country. You could see why: here the winding light played across the plains, and the rain clouds could be seen for miles. I pulled out and drove on the empty road, a dark patch of sky approaching on the horizon.

The rain came harder this time, and then suddenly, through the water, a sign appeared: ‘Fish River’. I took its lure. Ten kilometres and eight cattle-grids later I reached my destination.

It had taken me nearly three days of solid driving to get here from Cape Town. But distance is a feature of all life here. The hunting ground for Richard Holmes Safari stretched for some 200,000 acres on either side, bordering the edges of the Karoo and Eastern Grasslands. And after much negotiation about hunting permits and emails that bounced back and forth, I had agreed that I would come to these spreading valleys and gentle hills to hunt two springbok, the national symbol of South Africa. This was no easy decision. In a very basic sense I was coming to hunt purely for this book. In order to understand the hunter’s allure, I felt I had to do this. I had but one caveat – that whatever was hunted would grace the table later.

Getting out of the car, I looked around. I was in a shallow valley, and far away the tips of distant mountain ranges could be seen. Glossy starlings lined the road, high on branches that still dripped from the downpour, and the air smelled clean. And then, through the slanting rain, the owner of the Safari Lodge came out to greet me.

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