When I was kid airguns were everywhere, we all loved them and had one, if you didn’t you wanted one or a mate would lend you one. On our street half of the kids had them, it wasn’t usual for 10-20 of us to be down the canal with them.
Every trip into town I’d visit Suggs, Hardy’s, Woolworths and Rackhams just to look at the latest guns. It was the same with the mail-order catalogues when the new one came out I’d race up to my grandmothers to just look at the 3 pages of guns that they had featured. Casting my mind back there was one called the Cougar, it had a metal butt that folded out, it looked like the future to me but I couldn’t talk anyone into buying one for me.
For pellets you’d just go to any hardware store and ask for 177, you’d then get what they gave you, I can’t see it even really mattered back then, a cardboard box of Prems or Bulldogs.
I also remember all the older lads being obsessed with Ox springs and tuning their guns up so they almost knocked your head off. Then Punk happened and I lost interest but I’d still check in at Woolworths when buying music to see what they had.
I’m sat here wondering if I’m of the last generation where guns where everywhere, I’m trying to think of places in Sheffield where I could go to get one and beyond gun/dive shops. I can’t think of a single place.
I think you all know that my opinion is that youngsters are not our future in Field Target but are we going to run out of people who remember these romantic childhood times and have no relationship with air guns? Are the golden years over?
