BACK TO MENU

HORSE & HOUND - AUGUST

I was only 23 when I first became a MFH. I was the youngest MFH in the country, also probably the stupidest. I was convinced that I was God’s gift to Foxhunting. I sharp learned otherwise. But I was very fortunate. In those far off days, the luxury of learning on the job was still affordable. Also I was blessed with a first class mentor in the late, great, Mary Douglas-Pennant – one of the few ladies to have hunted hounds. She was a terrifying lady with a stammer and she could swear like the proverbial Trooper. She said to me:

“You’re no bloody good, Boy, but I knew your grandfather and I’ll make a f----ing master of you, even if it kills us both” – it nearly did for me, but I listened and I learned and, because of her training, I survived for 25 seasons. She was God’s answer to my impertinence.

Now we live in very different times. Surtees once wrote:

: " A Master of Hounds is one of the most difficult characters in life to fill; hence it is not surprising that there are but two sorts - the best fellows under the sun - and the nastiest brutes going"

In the present climate, we can’t be doing with nasty brutes. I have known some and, happily, they are all either dead, or retired (‘Age, Vice and Unsoundness’). Most modern Masters are pleasant and well-meaning people, but many of them fail through lack of knowledge and experience. This is a great waste of potentially good people.

In business terms a modern Master is a CEO and modern Foxhunting is undoubtedly a business that requires skill, experience and guts. Most people who take on Masterships have guts, but skill and experience have to be acquired. The answer that I suggest is training.

It is increasingly the case that anyone who wishes to rent deer-stalking, will be expected to have a DMQ, level 2. A Deer Management Qualification can only be attained by training and assessment by qualified instructors. It involves attending training courses and learning about deer, firearms, marksmanship, safety, field craft and some basic epidemiology. To reach level 2 requires time and commitment, as indeed does Mastership, so should not wanna-be Masters be required to have some sort of MQ? I know that the MFHA does hold weekend courses for new masters, but that is hardly sufficient. The Masters are already in place and in a position to make a horlicks of a hunting country and the courses are not compulsory anyway. There should be more courses and more intensive, with assessment. Qualification should be a requirement for all prospective candidates.

In my last article, I took a sideways look at the methods of appointing Masters and it is pretty much a lucky dip. Foxhunting needs and deserves something better. My suggestion is for a two-part course – Hound Management and People Management. This is merely a statement of basic principles. I do not have space to discuss the nuts and bolts of such a course. Given space and time, I expect that I could devise a curriculum.

That magnificent and wonderful animal, the Foxhound, deserves the very best of management. Ignorant Masters are sometimes reluctant to appoint Hunt Staff who know more than they do – not difficult in some cases, I fear. This leads to the situation where half trained huntsmen are put on, who, in their turn produce half trained whippers-in, who then go on to… well, it becomes a vicious downward spiral, which does no good to Hunting and certainly no good to the Foxhound. I have seen such things as might have caused my ‘knotted and combine–ed locks to part…’ had I not been bald. You cannot blame the Hunt Servants – they deserve good management as much as the Foxhound – ‘The fish stinks from the head.’

People management is vital, because hunting happens to people. Every inch of land that a hunt crosses, is owned, or managed by people. To the Master they must never be ‘person or persons unknown’. These people deserve, not only to be known, but also to be treated in a sympathetic and understanding way – they have to like and trust the Master and from this comes respect and support.

Surtees detailed the necessary virtues of a Master – here are some of them:

“‘The boldness of a lion, the cunning of a fox, the shrewdness of an excise man, the decision of a judge, the punctuality of a time piece, the patience of Job, the wiliness of a diplomatist, the politeness of a prince, the fire enduring powers of a salamander, with a slight touch of the eloquence of Cicero and temper as even as the lines in a copy book.”

As the author himself said: "Lor’ bless us what a combination of qualities.”

BACK TO TOP

BACK TO MENU