By Simon K. Barr
THE MACNAB Setting off.
L
ooking back on my life, John Buchan’s fable of John Macnab has always been omnipresent. In fact, until I penned this piece, I had not quite appreciated just how much the story had touched my life. I first read a tatty Penguin edition as a young boy and have since read it twice more as an adult. Each time I have devoured the dog-eared pages, finishing it in just a few hours. The words never fail to capture my imagination and the characters stay with me long after I have concluded the tome. The last 10 years in particular – since my first attempt in Argyll – have been peppered with its narrative. When I married my lovely Selena in 2011, she surprised me with a very special wedding gift – a leather-bound first edition. The hardback had taken her two years to source. It now sits front and centre on my office bookcase amongst other fine sporting literature. After three failed attempts, in 2014 we moved from Sussex to the Scottish Borders partly so that I could be closer to the River Tweed to fish for salmon more regularly and to 56
master a double-handed fly rod. The vast majority of successful Macnabs start with the fish and I knew I needed to boost my chances. Being closer to the Scottish battleground would help too. There are yet more examples of Buchan’s influence... more recently, we renovated our home and installed a hidden bookcase door in the snug. To gain entry, a copy of John Macnab must be partly pulled from the shelf, completing a successful challenge in itself. When we relocated the headquarters of Fieldsports Journal to Edinburgh, we renamed the building Macnab House. So you see, I am a bit taken by what is, in my view, the ultimate of personal sporting challenges. In all, there are 11 chapters to my Macnab story, each ending in defeat, bar of course the last. All as important as one another, each chapter galvanised my resolve for the next chance to conclude my tale. It’s been about patience, something I am little known for, bloody mindedness, I’m more of that by character, and determination. My story culminated in a grand finale where the
Winter 2020 Irish Country Sports and Country Life
stars finally aligned in Caithness, about as far north as one can seek sport in mainland Great Britain. I am still on a massive high, it feels surreal to say that I have finally succeeded. It was my mission for a little over a decade – and it’s now done. When trying to explain the Macnab to non-shooting friends or those living outside of the UK, I normally use cricket as an analogy as it is equally eccentric and strange to the unaccustomed. Why would one be so motivated to carry out this bizarre challenge of catching a salmon on the fly, shooting a brace of grouse and taking a stag between dawn and dusk? I think cricket – also inherently British – has many strange idiosyncrasies such as the Ashes series lasting 25 days over five matches, and the absurd Duckworth-Lewis method for calculating a target score if rain interrupts play. There is quite a nice parallel between the two. To me, the Macnab was my own Ashes series. I owe a debt of gratitude to the rivers that vanquished my chances over the
