Frank Thurlow

Knowing Your Territory

Appears in

Published 1998

About

‘There’s only one way to do it,’ says Frank Thurlow, ‘and that’s the right way.’ Frank is a stickler for the right way. He shoots – ‘culls’ is the word he uses – the deer, and butchers them, for Heathcote’s. Paul says Frank can give you the life history of each deer he brings in. Modestly, Frank says he just keeps records.

On this still, clear, cool autumn evening, Frank is dressed to kill, you might say. Everything he wears is serviceable and has seen a good deal of service, and has been chosen to make him as invisible as possible as he patrols the woods beyond the perimeter of the Longridge Golf Club and Cycling Association course -heather-green trousers, shirt, jacket, waterproof, cap, heavy boots, mittens. He wears the mittens to minimize he flash of his hand as he raises his binoculars to scan glades in the wood, or the open escarpment at their edge that marks the end of his domain.