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HORSE & HOUND - MAY

There are too many Hunts and not enough country to contain them all – that is the point of this article. It is a problem that has been accepted as fact by the ‘Powers that Be’ – in this case the Masters of Foxhounds Association. It has appointed a Senior Member, of great presence and intelligence (even if his suit is sometimes rather crumpled) to act in this matter. He is what our revered Prime Minister would refer to as a ‘Hunt Country Czar’. I wonder what happened to all those Czars? One hopes that they have not all finished up in cellars with a taxpayer’s bullet in the back of the head. I suspect that most readers have never heard of our Czar although, like John Gilpin, he is a ‘citizen of credit and renown’. However I happen to know (well, he is my Brother in Law) that he has been quietly beavering away trying to reconstruct the body of Foxhunting in this country into a more practical shape. Foxhunting is suffering from the fashionable problem of Obesity – there are just too many hunts trying to fit into countries that they have sadly outgrown. This is a particular problem in the South and East of the country. I remember talking to a senior and respected Foxhunter in the S.East, a few years ago. His country had been sadly reduced by urban development. He compared his hunting country to a series of billiard tables – hunting was possible as long as it kept to the ‘green baize’ areas, but if the ball left the table it was an automatic ‘foul’:

“I dread” he said – “the thought of a 2 mile point.” The point about Foxhunting is that it is the pursuit of the wild fox in natural conditions. In an increasing spread of rural England the natural conditions are being reduced by new roads, new conurbations, shopping malls, golf courses and ‘amenity areas’ whose amenities do not include hunting. Nor are the foxes in these areas particularly wild. They are ‘dustbin foxes’ with little natural fear of man and, when hunted, their instinct is to head for their natural habitat amongst the back gardens and bijou residences of suburbia. I remember being told of a certain pack that killed a run fox in the garden of a suburban house – Oh Calamity! The huntsman was pleasantly surprised to find the owner leaping up and down and ‘Who-whooping’ in excitement. The fox had met its end in the one property on a new estate that was inhabited by a retired hunt servant – Oh Joy! And a bottle of whisky. The odds on that happening must have been very long indeed.

It is, or should be, obvious that hunting cannot be safely conducted in such constricted areas. I shuddered when told of a pack that regularly drew an area of rough ground that bordered on a Motorway service station. In these conditions, common sense dictates that such a hunt cannot continue in an independent state. It must amalgamate and indeed this has happened in many areas and not just in recent years. The Hitler War brought about some amalgamations – for instance the Bicester amalgamated with the Warden Hill in 1948 and more recently mutated again into the Bicester with Whaddon Chase, which is rather a mouthful.

The first amalgamation that I can remember was the Garth and S.Berks. The S.Oxfordshire went in with the Hertfordshire and the Old Berkeley. They avoided prolixity by, very sensibly, becoming the Vale of Aylesbury. This has now been complicated by a conjunction with the Garth and South Berks to become the Vale of Aylesbury with G&SB – doesn’t trip off the tongue. Other recent joinings have been the South Down and Eridge; the Old Surrey, Burstow and West Kent; the Meynell and South Staffs; the Hursley Hambledon; East Sussex and Romney Marsh; West Street Tickam; Badsworth and Bramham Moor. There are more, but to descend into a mere list of names, might encourage the reader boredom which may already be setting in. The things that all these joining have in common is (1) that they have taken place in areas of maximum population pressure (2) that whilst the new countries cover huge geographical areas on the map, they all run on the ‘Billiard Table’ system with large stretches of unhuntable country in between and long distances to travel – comfortable transport would be a must.

I can only think of one amalgamation that has taken place for totally opposite reasons. The College Valley / North Northumberland exist in one of the least populated areas of England (plus a bit of Scotland). The only reason that I am prepared to offer for the jointure of these two totally disparate countries is the pooling of scarce finance.

Of course it is impossible to ignore the personal equation in all of this. There are certainly packs that should amalgamate for practical reasons, but personal feelings get in the way. One of the problems for our Czar has been the ‘overmydeadbody’ syndrome. How often he must have wished to oblige.

It is right that people should feel passionately about THEIR hunt, but not to the extent of harming Foxhunting. It is sad but true that the two things that cause the most rows in rural England are Hunting and the Church.

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