"PULL!" I yell at the microphone in front of me. A bright orange clay disc of 11cm diameter spurts out of the large pit opposite, and flies 30, 40, 50 metres away from me. I press the trigger, feel the thud of the shot through my shoulder, and watch the speck of orange land intact on a grassy bank in the distance.
"Unlucky," enthuses the barely audible voice behind me. I lower the gun, break it, and move to pull my ear muffs to one side. A hand stretches out in the nick of time to prevent the used cartridges popping smokily out of the barrel and into my bespectacled face.
"That was good," beams Charlotte Kerwood, my shooting guide. "You just shot underneath it, but not by much."
She's lying. I missed by metres.
As a 15-year-old at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, Kerwood fired her way to gold in the double trap (in which two clays appear in quick succession). Four years later in Melbourne she defended her title, and took gold in the pairs event for good measure.
Women's double trap was dropped from the programme for Beijing 2008, thus consigning the event to the lay-by of Olympic history where events such as tug-of-war and power boating were already parked. Not permitted to compete with the men (a practice which had been allowed until 1992), Kerwood opted for the discipline of shotgun trap, commonly known as Olympic trap – three rounds of a double barrel at 25 randomised clays, with the six highest scorers taking another 25 single shots in the final. It's a discipline which, Kerwood tells me helpfully after eight consecutive misses, a novice would never normally bother attempting.
I last held a shotgun at a stag-do in the 1990s, picking off clays with surprising regularity. They all flew gently from left to right, travelling along the same path at the same speed. Here, the clays arc away from the shooter, fanning out in different directions at varying heights. If the speed doesn't beat you (approaching 50mph), the distance will. The clays I am missing land 80 metres away.
Shooting was one of the nine activities at the first modern Olympic Games, Athens 1896, but attitudes to the sport have changed vastly in the UK since the days when live pigeons were the targets. Laws passed after the Dunblane massacre in 1996 ensured that Britain's pistol shooters must now generally practise abroad, their sport effectively illegal in the UK. Although shotguns are still permitted, attitudes to the sport are still befuddled by the relationship between guns and leisure.
Set a target of two shooting medals in Beijing, Team GB returned home empty-handed. A reduction in funding was to be expected, but the deepest of any Olympic sport – a swingeing 75% cut – left shooting with a total of £1.225m for London 2012. That is less than fencing, handball, volleyball and water polo, and a third of the funds allocated for synchronised swimming. It seems harsh on a sport which retains genuine medal prospects, and particularly tough on Kerwood, a proven champion, still new to her discipline. She lost all her funding.
I arrive at Northall Clay Pigeon Club in East Sussex on a late summer's day to find Kerwood helping out in the kitchen. The tang of sausages mingles with smells that remind me of childhood fireworks displays, and we sit chatting amid a barrage of shots. It's more than a little disconcerting for a city-dweller.
One safety briefing later, the coaching begins. I need to keep my weight on the front foot, bend my knee a little, lean forward, stick my bum out a bit more, and shut my right eye – I'm right-eye dominant, apparently. Tuck the gun into the padded part of my shoulder, rest my cheek against it – not my chin, that'll hurt – look past the gun, shout pull, follow the target up, and shoot. Oh, and not forget the second shot if I miss with the first.
I hit my ninth "bird" and sigh with relief. Kerwood is a decent coach, which is fortunate as helping out at the club is now a necessity rather than a pleasure. Her parents run and own the shoot – pictures and banners celebrating Charlotte's successes are everywhere – and she is hugely appreciative of their support, without which she would not have continued to progress. Her 16th place in Beijing was bettered by an eighth in May's world cup in Munich, a single clay shy of reaching the final.
We start our competition: two shots at each of 25 clays. It's like the first round of the Olympics, except that, after some haggling, she gives me a 20-point head start.
"If you lose, it will be in the papers." Charlotte's father Dan wanders past, grinning. "She doesn't like losing," he continues, but his daughter has already put her "ears" back on and approached the peg, ready to shoot.
The first clay remains intact. She chides herself, and takes a moment to reflect before re-loading. For the first time today, her smile has disappeared. She has an air of calm, is walking at a slower pace, and her body and gun together follow the next four clays through the air with an unfussy elegance. All are smashed into a thousand pieces, each destroyed with her first shot, their detritus adding to the orange tint in the grass below.
Miraculously, I clip two of my first five clays, both with the first shot. My weight is repeatedly shifting backwards, however, and two hands appear regularly on my shoulders to keep me steady. I realise now why Kerwood has been standing so close. If I miss with the first, my second shots are worthless, my staccato technique starkly contrasting with her elegance. I'm shooting like a character from Dad's Army.
In her zone, Kerwood hits the next five, while I have a single success. Another miss from the gold medallist ensures that in my third round I need just one bird for a nominal victory. I get lucky with a straight one.
Kerwood misses just one more clay – her 22 score would have won the last Olympic final. I follow up with 1 and 0 to amass five. My shoulder is beginning to bruise, my arms are tired, and it's time to retire. She shakes my hand with a grin and congratulations, and I head in, theoretically victorious, for lunch. It will probably be cooked by an Olympian. That feels wrong.