text: 28th August 2003 Reading Time: < 1 1 comment
  The story behind it goes back some years when we were taking our kids to Clayton Vale, a country park in east Manchester. It was once the industrial heartland of the area, but now it is a strip of green, running from the city centre to Ashton-under-Lyne, either side of the River Medlock.
  As we dropped into the valley, I told my wife that I used to drive that route in my youth, to collect a friend to go parachuting at Cark in the Lake District. Several minutes passed, and I was parking the car, when my then five-year-old daughter, Bryony, piped up from the back seat.
  "Well, I think that's cruel." Me and Mrs P looked at each other rather nonplussed.
  "Shooting parrots," she said. "That's very cruel."
  Parents even more nonplussed. Then the penny dropped. Parachuting = parrot shooting to a five-year-old!
  Out of interest, I searched Google for the phrase "shooting parrots" and up popped this site. Wasn't that worth waiting for!