Uncle Randall ~

Randall looked like Mr Punch. He had a red nose, bright twinkly eyes, and he loved telling his nephews ever so slightly naughty limericks. 'Randal!' Aunt Nance would snap at him, 'Not in front of the children!'
Of course 'the children' meant my brother Mark and me, and we loved Uncle Randall's rhymes. And him.
We also loved him because he had a real Colt .45 six shot revolver, just like those used by our Saturday cinema film cowboy heroes, which he kept on a hook above the living room fireplace, well out of reach of nephews in short trousers. We were in awe that he actually had one, with bullets, and there was always the vague promise that he would demonstrate it for us one day. And our patience paid off. One day he did.
It was a Saturday, on Wytham village green near Oxford, just next door to Randall's farm. It seemed the whole village was there. There were Tombola stands, home-made cakes and jam, never-ending tea and cucumber sandwiches, but it was clear that the main event was to be a show by Uncle Randall of highlighting his horsemanship skills. Mark and I couldn't wait, but we filled in the time, and our tummies, with cake, jam tarts and lemonade, or pop, as we called it.
Randall had been a cavalry man. He, along with another brother, were horse-mounted guards alongside Queen Mary when she visited Oxford.
A great competitor, Randall rose to be the Army horse-riding champion with a lance. Since then he had adapted his skills to entertain audiences with demonstrations of his horsemanship. He would have worried Mongolian bare-back riding warriors and Ghengis Khan himself.
An accomplice in drag and a top hat (don't ask; all will be revealed) would walk to the centre of the performance area and begin to hammer a wooden tent peg into the ground. Suddenly Randall would appear behind him on horseback, galloping full tilt from the far end of the field and thunder towards him, twelve-foot lance held high. As he neared the man, who was still hammering the peg and seemingly oblivious of approaching doom, Randall would lower the lance and aim it between the man's legs. Rider and horse would hurtle by in a thunder of hooves and dust and the lance would spin over his head. On it's tip would be the tent peg. Of course this feat gave rise to ecstatic applause as Randall knocked the tent peg off his lance, but he had not finished yet. In a flurry of hooves, he and his horse would whirl around and head back towards the fleeing accomplice. Again, at full gallop, and with the lance levelled, Randall would fly at the running man and spear the top hat from his head. 

YThe hat was attached to the drag dress with string, so hat and dress would rip off, leaving the chap in pantomime dame underwear. Cue more applause and lots of laughter. Both men would take a well deserved bow, one for his wonderful skills and one for quite breathtaking courage. The horse was happy for a chance to eat grass, but not for long. Randall had another amazing feat to perform. 

At the edge of the Arena was a stack of straw bales, with a curtain of hessian sacking hanging in front of it. On a wooden shelf in front of that stood six beer bottles. At the far end of the field, Randall and his horse readied themselves to go again. And this time he was armed not with a lance, but with his Colt .45. This was it. The big one as far as Mark and I were concerned.
Urging his steed into another full gallop down the field, clods of earth flew from its flying hooves as they sped past the bottles. Suddenly the revolver was in Uncle Randall's hand and he levelled it towards the bottles. BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Six shots rang out, and six bottles shattered! Hopalong Cassidy, Tex Ritter, Gene Autry, the Lone Ranger ... eat your hearts out. This was our Uncle Randall! As far as we were concerned, from then on he was right up there with the best.
Years later, our father let us in on the secret. At the sound of each shot the accomplice, concealed behind the hessian sacking, would wack a bottle with a hammer and it would shatter spectacularly. Randall, of course, was firing blanks. But wow! It looked good and, although long gone, Uncle Randall is a hero of ours to this day, him and Hopalong Cassidy.

______________________

Footnote:

I had a friend at school called Bill Prewett. Bill is still around, as are other old school friends, but I am notoriously anti-social and accept that it is my loss that we don't meet nowadays.

Bill's father was the poet Frank Prewett, and one day in the sixties, in an old second-hand bookshop in Burford, my then wife Rosemary discovered a book headed, "The Collected Poems of Frank Prewett". In it we found this poem which, apart from the mention of wife and son, rings so true of my uncle, Randall Wise.

Randall is Dead

Randall is dead, Randall, lusty and big.

Hard riding Randall, wise in the ways of the wild,

Who jibbed at books like his mare smelt a pig,

His mare that flung him, his mare more dear than child.

Love of all living blazed from him around.

He cheered the stranger, warmed the poor and cold,

All but his meagre wife who envious frowned,

And his seven year old boy, in studying grown old.

When Randall galloped his fields a mile away,

He dwarfed the trees, as the sun he shone.

Maid or man he smote hard by his death this day;

Our fields must be barren, now great Randall has gone.

He lies in dust, bronze and tawny as in life.

And his loved mare peevishly snatches the grass,

Waiting his mounting and their joyful strife,

But his strength is stretched in the dust whoever may pass.

(Frank Prewett,  1893 - 1962)