WHEN two generations of a Guernsey shooting family, Frank Mace and his son, Martin, heard that not only the third generation, Nick, but also his wife, Lucy, had qualified for the Queen’s Prize at Bisley, they moved quickly. Two seats were booked on the red-eye to Southampton for the following morning – they weren’t going to miss a unique Guernsey event.

This was the first time an island couple had appeared in the elite list of shooters known as The Queen’s 100.

One of them, by the end of the day, might just be in the chair which takes the Commonwealth’s champion rifle shot off the Bisley ranges in a hero’s procession.

Nick and Lucy had shot their way successfully through the first and second stages at the shorter ranges of 300, 500 and 600 yards, together with their Sarnian colleague, Peter Jory.

For all the competitors, the heat had been dreadful – on the ground temperatures in the blazing sunshine were said to be in excess of 40C.

The ultimate test, though, is always the two sets of 15 rounds in the Queen’s Final at 900 and 1,000 yards on Bisley’s vast Stickledown Range.

Grandfather and father Mace arrived at Bisley in good time to see Nick shoot for Guernsey in the international Mackinnon match on Stickledown.

If that had been all they were going to see, the flight from the island wouldn’t have been wasted.

Nick put all his shots smack into the bullseye at 900 yards with a repeat performance at 1,000 – the only highest-possible score among all the international teams on the range that morning.

Frank Mace and I were two of the marksmen who had carried Guernseyman Charles Trotter off the Bisley range as Queen’s Prize winner in 1975.

Such was Nick’s form, could it be that we’d be doing the same for his own grandson later in the day?

‘Nothing fazes him,’ said Frank. ‘He’s got nerves of steel.’

Frank, now 84, knows a thing or two about the pressures of competitive shooting.

He was a winner back in the 1960s and 1970s of several Guernsey Rifle Club full-bore trophies such as the ExServicemen’s and the Le Maitre. A distinguished shot, too, in small-bore and air rifle.

The Mace shooting dynasty was firmly established when Martin began competing for Guernsey in inter-insular matches and winning island competitions.

Little wonder that a young Nick would be behind a rifle at the age of 12.

Now 31, Nick is a London solicitor living in Hampshire with Lucy and their one-year-old son, Rory.

Nick and Lucy are something of a golden couple in their generation of Bisley shooters. Nobody was surprised to see them both winning those coveted Queen’s 100 badges.

Lucy developed her own shooting prowess at Bradfield College in Berkshire – a school with as fine a shooting tradition as Elizabeth and Victoria in the Channel Islands. She then shot for Oxford University and England.

So it was that four generations of Maces were all together on the Bisley range on Saturday – little Rory, if not with a rifle in his tiny hands, having his hearing protected with ear defenders as he watched mummy and daddy do their stuff.

In the final itself, Nick and Lucy needed to shoot like demons. They’d both dropped points in the Queen’s second stage, a deficit they were carrying back.

At 900 yards, they both duly delivered as did their friend Jory, the only other Guernseyman left vying for shooting’s ultimate prize. Fifteen shots each, all bullseyes, no messing.

Lucy fell victim to wind changes at 1,000 yards, dropped six points and was out of contention.

Nick, though, powered on to achieve a remarkable 149 ex 150. But although he’d scored two more points than the eventual winner, Jon Underwood, the latter’s highest possible score in stage II had put him in what turned out to be an unassailable position.

A businessman from Surrey, Underwood had also become the first shot to win all three stages of the Queen’s Prize since its inception in 1860.

Accepting 12th place in the overall counting-out procedures, Nick smiled manfully. Rory, though, was by now in his mother’s arms and sensed the occasion, perhaps, with a tear in his eye.

‘I’ll just have to shoot better at the short ranges next time,’ said Nick.

And there will be plenty more times, too. This was his third consecutive appearance in the Queen’s final, Lucy’s first.

The Guernsey contingent of shooters has probably never been stronger. The stars among them – Nick, the Jory brothers (Adam and Peter), the Burton brothers (Andy and Nick) – are all island ambassadors in full-bore shooting.

There are more coming up behind them as Elizabeth College cadets, including Peter Knight and Rob Waters, showed only too well when they took part in the Bisley competitions and, in some cases, shot internationally for the island.

Jersey has a much, much bigger and more sophisticated shooting set-up and yet, with the help of its young up-and-coming shots, it was Guernsey who took the honours in the two most important Bisley matches.

The island should be proud of all of them.

And watch out for young Rory Mace. There’s a Queen’s Prize winner if ever I saw one.