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It is exactly 100 years since the Olympics was last in Paris, an anniversary with some significance for Guernsey's shooting community.
Two members of the Guernsey Rifle Club are part of the Olympic story, Sir Philip Neame and Charles Trotter.
Pictured: Sir Philip Neame coaching for Guernsey at Bisley.
Sir Phillip holds the distinction of being the only man to win an Olympic gold medal and be awarded the Victoria Cross.
That gold came in the running deer, double shot, team event. It involved teams of four shooting at a moving target that simulated the animal.
It was in December 1914 that he won the VC at Neuve Chapelle on the Western Front.
He attained the rank of Lieutenant General in 1940 and was knighted in 1946, while serving as Guernsey’s Lieutenant-Governor from 1945-53.
Pictured: The 1950 Guernsey Inter Insular team with Sir Phillip (front centre) and Charles Trotter (third from right).
Sir Philip was one of several figures instrumental to the Guernsey Rifle Club’s success in the post-world-war era.
While his efforts to revive the Royal Guernsey Militia were in vain, a significant by-product was the building of the Fort Le Marchant rifle range using funds from the States and the disbanded Militia. The club continues to call Fort Le Marchant its home.
As an aside, Sir Phillip met his wife in unusual circumstances.
After being badly mauled by a tiger while big game hunting in India he married Miss Alberta Drew who nursed him in the hospital.
Pictured: Olympic, Commonwealth and Bisley memorabilia on display in Candle Museum.
Another key figure in the Guernsey team during the 1950s and the decades to come was Charles Trotter, who appeared for British Kenya in the smallbore events at both the Melbourne and Rome Olympics in 1956 and 1960.
Pictured: The 1960 Kenya Kolapore team including Charles Trotter (right).
While never placing higher than 37th at the Olympics, in 1975 Trotter won arguably shooting's greatest honour, HM The Queen’s Prize, after a six-way tie-shoot, the first in the competition's history.
He was a prolific smallbore and fullbore shooter for almost fifty years for Guernsey, Hampshire, and Scotland.
Pictured: Charles Trotter is chaired at Bisley after wining HM The Queen’s Prize.
Trotter was educated at Elizabeth College and served in the Royal Engineers during World War 2.
After studying photography, he established a photography business in Nairobi were he lived between 1951 and 1962.
Pictured: Charles Trotter smiles at the end of a shoot.
He returned to Guernsey in 1966, representing the island in three consecutive Commonwealth Games from 1974, winning a bronze in the Fullbore Rifle singles event in Brisbane 1982.
With thanks to the Guernsey Rifle Club for information and images.
Pictured top: The Guernsey Camp in 1950. Sir Philip Neame (front, centre) and Charles Trotter (back row, second from right).
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