Glorious Twelfth is a 'date to celebrate'

I was up much earlier than usual on this particular morning and I had a journey of about 60 miles to get to the grouse moors. I was excited about the prospects of meeting up with a few friends to put a brace of grouse into the bag for next week’s Sunday lunch.

When I went to the kennel to let the dog out she did cartwheels, somersaults, jumped up to lick my face and the shot off like a bullet to get into the back of my vehicle. Springer spaniels are enthusiastic at the best of times but today her enthusiasm knew no bounds. The shooting season had come round again and she knew it. My excitement was only slightly better contained than that of the dog.

So what’s a lad from a council estate in Barnsley doing talking about grouse shooting - isn’t that just for the toffs and wealthy?

My family were employed in the coal mining and steel making industries. I had a basic – very basic – education. Not a sniff of Oxbridge. Of course many of the people who shoot grouse are wealthy, but not exclusively so, I can assure you, and definitely not in my case. And if there is something distasteful about being wealthy, then you’d better give The National Lottery a miss.

Upland grouse moors need management. Much of that management is done by farming and grouse moor interests. The water companies and organisations like RSPB, Natural England and other conservation organisations also have a stake in the uplands. It can be a volatile place, literally! The various stakeholders may have differences of opinion about the management techniques used to enhance these beautiful and wild grouse moors, but they do at least accept that no management at all spells disaster.

These heather dominated hills may look beautiful in all their flowering purple glory, but they can also be an accident waiting to happen. When the vegetation becomes too dense and unmanaged, all it takes is a dry day, strong winds and discarded cigarette end to light up the sky like Sheffield in the Blitz. Wild fires do terrible – and sometimes long term – damage to the environment.

The red grouse need heather in various stages of growth to provide the food and insects needed to sustain them. Gamekeepers, employed by grouse moor owners, often working with local farmers, use various techniques such as cutting and burning older heather to encourage regeneration. This is usually done on a strict rotational basis and it provides the essential firebreaks needed to prevent a disastrous and uncontrolled fire from taking hold.

Heather moorland is rarer than rainforest with 75 per cent found in Britain - that's why 79 per cent of the Pennines and North York Moors Special Protection Areas are managed for grouse shooting.

Some 90 per cent of English grouse moors are within a National Park or Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. These are impressive statistics and they give an indication of the significance of grouse moor management on these fragile upland areas.

Forty thousand people take part in grouse shooting every year with an average shoot bringing together 40 people. Grouse moor management also provides an ideal environment for threatened wading birds and other rare species. And last, but not least, grouse are an important and healthy source of food. I did manage to get a brace of birds on my first outing last season – that’s two birds. They were delicious. Try some grouse flavoured crisps – available here http://tasteofgame.org.uk/crisps/ - if you don’t believe me.

Of course everything in the garden is not rosy. There is controversy surrounding how our upland grouse moors should be managed. And I have friends on both sides of the argument. Both hold heartfelt and sincere believers. I have been a supporter of the RSPB for as long as I have been a supporter of BASC (The British Association for the Shooting and Conservation). I believe that these two organisations – and others involved in this debate - have more in common than they realise.

When it comes to settling differences of opinion I look for inspiration to Northern Ireland. If the people of this troubled province can come together to form something as fundamental as the Good Friday agreement, then it shouldn’t be beyond the wit of man to find some common ground and agreement on the way forward for Britain’s grouse moors.