When Tania very kindly offered me the opportunity to write a blog post, I jumped at the chance. I am currently 12 months and tens of thousands of pounds deep into a new business venture of creating a more fieldsports friendly social media app, as well as trying to parent two small children, maintain a relationship and friendships, carve out time for hobbies and remember to feed the dog and do the ironing… it’s safe to say the ironing never gets done. I’m sure most of you can relate, we all have a juggle of some sort. But before I shamelessly attempt to promote my new app, I thought I should explain a bit more about my background and, for want of a better word… journey, and why I have given this post a rather dramatic title.  

I was lucky enough to be brought up in the countryside, on a smallholding in Warwickshire. My father introduced me to shooting as a young child and I have fond memories of accompanying him on game days. I would attempt to work our lazy black lab with little success, ultimately having to retrieve the birds myself, and stuffing my face with as many sausage rolls as humanly possible at elevenses, before heading back to the car for a cheeky nap whenever the weather took a turn for the worst. 

When I started secondary school, I felt a pressure to distance myself from fieldsports and rural life in general as my peers mainly came from the surrounding town and did not understand my background. When I tried to talk about farming, riding or shooting, I was either labelled as ‘posh’ or barbaric. It felt as though I was speaking a foreign language and, as I was not the most confident of children, I simply stopped talking about life at home and started participating in the usual small talk of boys, makeup, shopping and how tedious our lessons were. This was over 15 years ago, so school environments may have changed an awful lot since then. 

Fast forward a few years and, as I approached my GCSEs, my mental health took a quite severe dive. I found myself leaving school in a matter of weeks with no plan and, in my mind, no future at all. I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted out of life, and certainly didn’t know which step to take next. I won’t go into too much detail here as I think there is still a stigma around mental health conditions, particularly where firearms are concerned, but for over a year I struggled to leave the house and all the relationships around me broke down. 

At a bit of a loss on how to help, and possibly not wanting to leave me alone too often, my father dragged me out to our local clay shooting ground. Having not shot for years and having very little enthusiasm for anything, especially fun, I was reluctant but took a few shots at a very simple teal and, to my surprise, I hit it. Thinking it must be a fluke, I had another pair and hit them again. It may sound ridiculous, but the feeling of accomplishment was overwhelming. Sometimes, when you feel so low about yourself, just being able to do one small thing, whether it’s to get out of bed and have a shower, go for a run, solve a puzzle or shoot a clay, can make the difference from despair to some form of, even fleeting, pride in yourself. 

We spent the whole morning at the clay ground, before heading to the local gun shop where my father purchased my first gun (a beaten up Beretta Silver Pigeon 20 bore) and then headed straight back to the ground for another few shots before it closed. Following that day, I started clay shooting regularly and as my confidence grew, so did other opportunities. The following year I started a part time job at Orvis, a fly fishing and country clothing retailer, before heading off to London to work at William Evans, a gunmaker and retailer, in Mayfair. 

From there I worked for The Oxfordshire Shooting School (the clay ground that I first started shooting at) and their sister company, Atkin Grant & Lang, in Hertfordshire. This is where I met my fiancé, Ian, who left James Purdey & Sons to set up his own gunmaking company. We now have two young daughters, two Shetland ponies and a terrier, and are attempting to give our little girls the rural upbringing that we were both lucky enough to have.

I can absolutely acknowledge that my early life was incredibly privileged but that doesn’t guarantee good mental health, and we all have our own silent struggles. I genuinely believe that shooting saved my life, it helped me to rebuild my confidence, gave me self-belief and resilience, and introduced me to some of the most wonderful and important people that I have ever met. Encouraging more people to try shooting is paramount and the CGUK is so incredible in its mission to build a welcoming community. And this brings me back to the app – Stile – and why Ian and I felt motivated to sell our house and chuck our whole life savings into this project.

Trying to promote the shooting and gunmaking companies that I have previously worked for was always a challenge. Google ads don’t like guns, Meta doesn’t like guns, digital advertising is a minefield when your content revolves around guns! We also see so much negativity towards farming and fieldsports on mainstream social platforms, often abusive and threatening. A prime example… the muppet that commented that we were murderers for participating in a sim day on the CGUK Facebook page. 

I can see the importance of spreading awareness and engaging with anyone who wants to know more on current platforms. However, we wanted to create a form of social media that supports rural businesses and allows users to post what they love and feel passionate about, without having to censor themselves to avoid restrictions, community guideline breaches and shadow bans.

It’s early days for Stile, we chose to launch the MVP (minimum viable product) as soon as we could and then seek investment, so we certainly have a journey ahead of us. But if we could be half as successful as Tania and the CGUK, and help with this mission to promote and stand up for fieldsports and rural life, then it will have been a gamble worth taking. 

Stile is available now to download from the App Store & Google Play- search Stile Country

Written by Rachel Draper Co-Founder of Stile Country

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