I grew up in North London during the 1970s. My childhood was different from that of my peers in one respect. My father collected historic firearms. Our home contained flintlock muskets, First World War bolt-action rifles and a variety of pistols. Once a year, a policeman arrived to check that my father’s armoury was properly secured and his paperwork in order. Today, it seems extraordinary that he was able to collect such things.

In an era when small boys spent their pocket money on Action Man figures, Dinky toys, Airfix model kits and comic books such as Warlord, Battle and Victor, I was the envy of the playground. My personal favourites from my father’s collection were a Martini–Henry breech-loading rifle, a .303 Short Magazine Lee-Enfield (SMLE) Mark III and a Mauser C96 semi-automatic pistol with a wooden stock. The Martini–Henry rifle featured in the 1964 film Zulu, which tells the story of the Battle of Rorke’s Drift (1879). But the rifle’s real appeal for me was its lever action, which reminded me of the Winchester repeating rifles from the Hollywood Westerns that filled my childhood.