Edna Rosalind Parker It is with deep regret that I must report that one of the icons of the Gun Trade has passed away. Edna Parker was a remarkable woman - a woman very much in a man's world, who succeeded in clinging to family traditions throughout her life. She was very proud of her antecedents not onlv on the "Parker" side but also on her moth:r's side ~ith links to Webley AND Greener and of cour;e the "Browns" are still very much in the Trade- A.A. Brown and Sons still making high quality shotguns in the traditional manner. The reprint from the Birmingham Post of December 12, 1978 gives an idea of her background and achievements, but as ever it is only HALF the story. Many people knew of Miss Parker by reputation- oft times for her high prices (!). In the trade she was affectionately know as Miss Plus Vat, for her addendum to any quoted price- "Plus VAT, of course." What they did not know was the woman behind the mask. I was privileged to get to know Edna personally, both at Bisley in the "inner sanctum" and also at her home just outside Birmingham. She was rooted in the '20s and '30s and still held her father, Alf, in the highest esteem (as did many in the Birmingham Trade - he was widely regarded as the finest craftsman of his generation) . Alf had been "eased out" of the family firm and Edna still harboured strong feelings about AC Hale: the letters sent to Alf in the trenches indicated how difficult it must have been for the family from the time Alf started up his first business (effectively closed down by Princip's pistol shots in Sarajevo) to his short tenure back with AGP until setting up on his own again in the mid-20s. When she left school in 1928 she took over the paperwork, which pleased Old Alf as he HATED being taken away from his files and milling machines to talk to a customer!!! Edna never fired a shot, but she certainly ran the business in her own way, but in latter years she found it difficult to understand the changes in the Shooting Sports. Often sitting in her kitchen with one of a succession of toy poodles snuffling around her carpet slippers she would say to me "I can't understand why they don't buy my fathers' 4/53 sights" (most of her advertisements in "Guns Review" or the NRA Journal went under the banner headline of "IMPROVE THE SIGHTING OF THE No. 4 RIFLE") and she could never understand when my response was to tell her that people were now taking OFF target sights. She couldn't see the reason for the introduction of expensive, purpose-built T .R.s costing £2000- and in a way she was RIGHT - as the number of active TR shooters seems to have declined in inverse proportion to the cost of the rifles. She was, understandably, too set in her ways to change, AJP having for 40 years serviced the needs of the NRA Shooter in the days when SR(a) was the baseline and SR(b) was about as far as you could go! When things changed in the late 60's she was in sole charge and because she was not a shooter was not able to keep in touch with the technical developments which moved NRA TR further and further away from SR(b) until the present definition is more akin to MR (Match Rifle). Thus her catalogue offered less and less to the new breed of TR shooter with stiffened actions and bolt-on goodies. Regrettably when "Classics" started to develop she did not understand WHY the Club Shooter was replacing his Envoy or 7.62-converted No.4 with a SMLE - arid thus fell into a limbo. Edna still ran the company 100% until last year when she broke a hip falling from a chair when painting, an injury from which she never really recovered, although her mind was as sharp as ever, right until the ~nd. She was 891h - typical that she fibbed about her age, telling me that she was just 1 year older than my Mother! She was a link with our heritage but her Father's Company still remains in the family and will still continue trading - so the rumours about the forthcoming bargains are unfounded. I will miss her as a friend - the "Imperial Meeting" and Historic Shooting will be the poorer for her passing, Jim Hallam HARK! Vol.S, #1, April1999: Page -16-Next >