The South Eastern Gundog Society (SEGS) was formed in 1952
by a group of gundog enthusiasts. The following memories of those
early days are by Gordon Smith, one of the founder members,
and first appeared in the 'Golden Jubilee Year Book' in 2002.

It all started in 1949 when I purchased a yellow Labrador as a belated
wedding present for my late wife, Phyllis. We got involved with showing
and it was at a Show that we learned about a gundog training class
to be held at Wrotham.

We were introduced to a gentleman who would start us off on the right
track. After it was explained what was expected of a working retriever,
handlers and dogs were taken into a field and shown some basic training
methods. The fun started when we were instructed to sit our dogs,
command them to stay and walk away. This we did. There were dogs
everywhere, with handlers trying to catch them, all except one which
was still sitting. The gentleman came up to me and said, ‘You’re having
me on – you’ve done this before!’ So I explained that my wife went
shopping with the dog, which was told to sit outside the shop and
therefore knew the ‘stay’ command. In due course I learnt that our
instructor was none other than Peter Moxon whom I came to know well
in later years. I not only ran dogs under him but also judged with him.