It was a tense moment. Rifle at my shoulder, attention focused on lining up the sights. My son and friend watching me make my final shot. ‘Billy Don’t Be a Hero’ on a loop with ‘Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town’. Could I hit the last target, the one that made the old codger come out of the toilet door? I was enjoying the simple pleasures of the Wild West shooting gallery at Paradise Park in Newhaven. The scene includes a plaster Native American and horse, clearly originally created as a Red Indian with evil intent to scalp those nice cowboys. I’d been hitting the targets pretty well. Then I noticed my friend’s face. ‘The things you find out about people’ she said. I’d not thought anything of it at the time, but I guess not everyone’s granddad taught them to shoot when they were eight. We used a .22 rifle, but I suspect he had a few other unlicensed weapons. We never aimed for anything breathing. He had a target on the wall with a bell that rang if you hit the spot. Until his retirement, he worked for the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston, but we never knew what he did there. At home, he had a fondness for DDT and other powerful chemicals, with which he waged war on weeds and germs. I recently found this photo of him. His name was Vivian, and it was taken when he was three. It was normal then, apparently, to dress boys as girls in ringlets and dresses, for formal photographs at least. It makes me think of Johnny Cash’s song 'A Boy Named Sue'. It might help explain a few things about granddad.