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HORSE & HOUND - MARCH 2005

It has been an enormous pleasure and honour through the years to have known some of the great professional huntsmen of the recent past – Charley Johnson, Will Pope, Stanley Barker, George Gillson and Albert Buckle spring readily to mind amongst many. To be a great huntsman requires a very special sort of man and I know of no breed of men for whom I have greater respect These men came up through a hard school and hard knocks. Success in hunting hounds is never handed to you on a plate. But, as the old saying has it –‘What’s bred in the bone comes out in the blood’. In my career hunting hounds, I have always been very grateful for the kindness many of these men have shown me and for their quiet encouragement. I have always treasured a remark from one famous professional, now retired but still alive, so I will not embarrass him by naming him. It was just after I had hung up my horn and we were judging a puppy show together. In a pause between classes, we were chatting away and he said – ‘They tell me, Sir, that you were good enough to have been a professional huntsman’. I do not think that anyone could have paid me a bigger compliment.

We now live in troubled times as far as hunting is concerned. I am certain that hunting will return, but it will not be the wild hunting that we have known up to now. This hiatus is the end of an era; it also marks the retirement of three famous huntsmen, which should not go unremarked.

Sidney Bailey (VWH) is the one I have known the longest. I first met him when he was whipping in to Nimrod Champion at the Ledbury. If ever a man was bred for Hunt Service it was Sidney – both his Uncles (Littleworth) were famous huntsmen and his father was the famous Kennelman at the Heythrop for time out of memory. It was hardly surprising that Sidney never had a doubt as to what his future career should be. He did the classic progression from the stables to second whipper-in and was still a teenager when he went to the Ledbury as first whipper-in. After three seasons Col Warden, the Master, moved to the VWH (Cricklade) and took Sidney with him. By the time he was 22 he was hunting hounds. Then came the amalgamation of the VWH (Cricklade) and the VWH (Bathurst). To save any squabbling (God save us all from hunt squabbles) it was decided that both huntsmen should be found new posts. Sidney went to hunt the Wylye Valley. In 1966 he was recalled to the VWH. He sent me his whipper-in – a lovely man called Gordon Musty, who sadly died much too young. Sidney’s skill as a huntsman has made him justly famous. The dry quiet humour that hides behind his poker face has brought him many friends. I know that Sidney is the same age as I am, but to me he looks just the same as he did when we first met somewhen in the mists of the early 1960s.

I can’t remember how long I have known Peter Jones, but when you get to my age, you will have known people for a long time. I think that I am right in saying that Peter has hunted the Pytchley since 1971, having whipped-in to Bert Maiden there before that, so he has had a long innings in a big country. The Pytchley may not be the country it once was, but you could say the same about every hunting country. One thing is certain sure - whatever the changes in the Pytchley country, Peter has made the best of things and has continued to show good sport under often difficult conditions. This is because he has a first rate pack of hounds (I have had the honour of judging his puppy show on occasion) and a first rate relationship with the farmers in the country. Peter has a wicked sense of humour and you would indeed be ‘dull of soul’ not to like him.

I have saved Bob Collins to the end for the simple reason that I have only known him for 30 odd years and I like to boast that I started the ‘Bloody Boy’ off. He used to whip in to me at the Taunton Vale. The family farm was on the march between us and the Cotley. His brother Peter, who I knew as a little boy on a shaggy pony, now hunts the Quorn.

Bob was a natural Foxhunter and I think always longed for Hunt Service. I believe that I used to advise him against it, but… that’s boys for you. Anyway, the Boy done good - first at the Chiddingfold and Leconfield and then since 1991 as huntsman to the H.H - a far from easy country, where he has done a great job. _Anyway I am going down to speak at his retirement ‘Do’ – I’ll fettle the ‘Bloody Boy’.

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