Much older when I got my air rifle, on to Christmas 1989 now.
The cursed air rifle..
Had great fun shooting targets in the garden initially, my mate 'mad Pete' decided to take the game up a level, now you would put on the goldfish bowl style motorbike helmet and run past the target, you win if you avoid being shot. This again worked quite well until the Police driving past took umbridge and confiscated said air rifle asking where our parents were, in a twist of fate somehow the copper knew Pete's Dad and gave it back to him a few days later.
I went to collect it and Pete's Dad said you need to cover it up on the way back, he duly lent me his prized snooker cue case to carry it home in, they lived near the snooker club so that seemed to make perfect sense.... however as we walked past the snooker club case in hand there was a bit of mither as we had seemingly stumbled in to an Orange march with the other side lurking nearby, a few older chaps offered me 5 quid for my snooker cue possibly wishing to engage the other lot in a quick game, I duly refused and at that point a bit of a shoving match ensued and somehow the airgun still in the case ended up in the hands of another copper who at this point didn't realise what it was... we both ended up back at Fallowfield station after being identified as the owners, interestingly enough after investigating they decided as we kept it in a case we hadn't committed any real offence * other than being under 18 and carrying it in public. Anyway enough of this I'm off to celebrate our fantastic win with a one air rifle salute 🫡