Yes, unfortunately, it's that time of year again. I was warned last week that they were meeting in the village, so the dog was walked earlier than usual so we wouldn't encounter them. From now on, I shall have to be careful every Saturday, listen out for signs of disturbance, and avoid going anywhere near them if I think they might be around.
Who are these hooligans terrorising the countryside? Why, the local hunt, of course.
I have to confess: I went hunting, or beagling rather. Once. I was ten, and my mother and uncle thought it would be a good idea to run around the fog-bound Essex countryside following a pack of dogs we had long ago lost sight of, with a huge lump of thick red clay adhering to each wellie so that after half an hour we could barely lug our own feet after us. Never, ever again. Of all the pointless exercises, I thought at the time, that takes the biscuit. My mother wasn't keen either, but I think she went along for her brother's sake. She had gone hunting as a child, and been blooded, a horrible experience for someone so squeamish, and had never forgotten the gleeful expressions on the faces of the farmers as the fox was torn to pieces. It was bloodlust, pure and simple, that had attracted them, and it repelled my mother.
The sight of hunt and hounds in full cry is spectacular (but then so is bull fighting). The first time we came to our village, house hunting, we saw them streaming across a distant field, traditional England in all its glory. The reality, of course, is rather different:
Who are these hooligans terrorising the countryside? Why, the local hunt, of course.
I have to confess: I went hunting, or beagling rather. Once. I was ten, and my mother and uncle thought it would be a good idea to run around the fog-bound Essex countryside following a pack of dogs we had long ago lost sight of, with a huge lump of thick red clay adhering to each wellie so that after half an hour we could barely lug our own feet after us. Never, ever again. Of all the pointless exercises, I thought at the time, that takes the biscuit. My mother wasn't keen either, but I think she went along for her brother's sake. She had gone hunting as a child, and been blooded, a horrible experience for someone so squeamish, and had never forgotten the gleeful expressions on the faces of the farmers as the fox was torn to pieces. It was bloodlust, pure and simple, that had attracted them, and it repelled my mother.
The sight of hunt and hounds in full cry is spectacular (but then so is bull fighting). The first time we came to our village, house hunting, we saw them streaming across a distant field, traditional England in all its glory. The reality, of course, is rather different:
- Hounds being exercised down a local lane, defecating in all the gardens, and no attempt made to clear up after them
- Trying to negotiate the cars of 'followers' parked in gateways, on verges, on bends, blocking the road while they peer at the action half a mile away through their binoculars
- Walking along a public footpath with several 4x4s full of hunt supporters trying to elbow their way past
- Being nearly run down by a huntsman who came at full gallop within touching distance of my dog
- Coming across the hunt unexpectedly on one of our walks, having the hounds set off in full cry after my dog, with the huntsman bellowing in pursuit cracking his whip: poor Rowan ran half a mile home in terror. Needless to say, no apology or expression of concern
- Badgers' setts regularly blocked up even though now, with actual hunting of foxes supposed to be illegal, there is no lawful justification for it
- Crops trampled over and fields invaded without permission
- The note I found once, listing all the hounds by name, with their ages. Only two were as old as seven. In the absence of any rehoming/rescuing organisations for foxhounds, I leave it to your imagination as to what happens to them once they get to six or so.
- And above all, feeling (because of other incidents) that you can't complain because if you do you might get a dead fox hung over your gate.
All of these things I've witnessed myself, or spoken to other people who have. It's amazing the number of people in this conservative, rural place who loathe the hunt and all they stand for: not so much for the killing of foxes (though that does count for quite a lot), but for their sheer arrogance, and their assumption that only they can speak for and represent the 'true countryside'. Bollocks, to coin a phrase. So is their assertion that hunting is not the preserve of the wealthy. Well, I don't think keeping a huge £5,000 horse eating its head off all winter, plus tack, horsebox, vet's bills and paddock and stable rent can be done on the average wage, somehow. The fact that most of the hunt people I speak to (when I can't avoid it) sound excruciatingly posh is a bit of a give-away, too. I do have a friend who hunts, but she says it's more for the social life and the riding than anything else - she's much more ambivalent about the killing aspect. I shall have to give her Masefield's 'Reynard the Fox' to read. That did it for me, in my childhood, as did 'Tarka the Otter'. Fortunately otter hunting is now banned, but just as reprehensible is hare hunting, and if the Tories get in next year it'll be back again, for no valid reason at all bar the 'chase'. There are hares here, but not many, and there'll be even less if the beagles return.
When we first moved here the hunt met in the village only occasionally - perhaps twice in a season. Then, around eight years ago, the big dairy farmer near us retired, and the farm was rented by a couple who are keen hunters and use the land for livery and a cross-country jumping course. And now we have the Avon Vale Hooligans every few weeks, truly the Unspeakable in full cry after the uneatable. You have to be very careful walking the dog on a Saturday afternoon, and there are one or two evening meets early in the season (which is when Rowan got chased). It disrupts our pleasant weekend routine, and it happens far too often. What's more, it's daft. In a village which grows so many vegetables, rabbits are such a serious pest that the parish council paid someone to cull them a few years ago. And what is the chief predator of rabbits? Brer Fox, of course. Mind you, I saw a letter from a member of the Countryside Alliance in the local press a couple of years ago, claiming (amongst other things) that foxes didn't kill rabbits, it was all a myth put about by anti-hunting people. Which only went to show how little he knew about the ecology of the countryside he was claiming to represent and protect. It's all one with the 'evil cruel fox who kills for pleasure and deserves to die' slander. Yes, foxes do kill chickens (we've lost loads to them over the years, mostly because I forgot to shut them up before darkness fell), but if they kill a lot, it's to feed their cubs, and they'll take the corpses away and stash them somewhere for later. One buried my neighbour's ducks all over my garden one night in St. Albans long ago. Foxes are opportunists, if they didn't kill they'd die of starvation, and to attribute human vices to them is naive at best, ignorant and malicious at worst. Better a quick death from Reynard than the torture of being skinned alive by a rogue Jack Russell (which happened to 19 of our hens a few years back).
So, I'm with the foxes. They're only trying to scrape a living in a hostile world, against huge odds, and succeeding remarkably well, considering. And if you've ever stopped your car, as I have, and stared into the golden, intelligent eyes of a fox pausing on the verge in the evening sunlight, and felt a shiver of some visceral, animal connection ... I think you would be on the fox's side, too, when the Unspeakable come riding.
When we first moved here the hunt met in the village only occasionally - perhaps twice in a season. Then, around eight years ago, the big dairy farmer near us retired, and the farm was rented by a couple who are keen hunters and use the land for livery and a cross-country jumping course. And now we have the Avon Vale Hooligans every few weeks, truly the Unspeakable in full cry after the uneatable. You have to be very careful walking the dog on a Saturday afternoon, and there are one or two evening meets early in the season (which is when Rowan got chased). It disrupts our pleasant weekend routine, and it happens far too often. What's more, it's daft. In a village which grows so many vegetables, rabbits are such a serious pest that the parish council paid someone to cull them a few years ago. And what is the chief predator of rabbits? Brer Fox, of course. Mind you, I saw a letter from a member of the Countryside Alliance in the local press a couple of years ago, claiming (amongst other things) that foxes didn't kill rabbits, it was all a myth put about by anti-hunting people. Which only went to show how little he knew about the ecology of the countryside he was claiming to represent and protect. It's all one with the 'evil cruel fox who kills for pleasure and deserves to die' slander. Yes, foxes do kill chickens (we've lost loads to them over the years, mostly because I forgot to shut them up before darkness fell), but if they kill a lot, it's to feed their cubs, and they'll take the corpses away and stash them somewhere for later. One buried my neighbour's ducks all over my garden one night in St. Albans long ago. Foxes are opportunists, if they didn't kill they'd die of starvation, and to attribute human vices to them is naive at best, ignorant and malicious at worst. Better a quick death from Reynard than the torture of being skinned alive by a rogue Jack Russell (which happened to 19 of our hens a few years back).
So, I'm with the foxes. They're only trying to scrape a living in a hostile world, against huge odds, and succeeding remarkably well, considering. And if you've ever stopped your car, as I have, and stared into the golden, intelligent eyes of a fox pausing on the verge in the evening sunlight, and felt a shiver of some visceral, animal connection ... I think you would be on the fox's side, too, when the Unspeakable come riding.
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