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NEWCASTLE JOURNAL - 18.3.04

I took my hunting horn to Birmingham on a Virgin train – a Virgin train is truly a transport of despair and I am sure that it has a ban on hunting horns – It has banned just about everything else. It just goes to show that bright, state of the art, new rolling stock doth not a railway make – you have got to know how to organise the things and Virgin simply does not have a clue. Should it ever get its claws on GNER (Branson is a great chum of the Beloved Blair) I shall despair yet more. I regard GNER as the best run rail company in Britain (alongside the brilliant little Chiltern line) – it ain’t broke so don’t mend it – a lesson our wonderful Government would do well to take on board. I have yet to travel on Virgin Cross Country when there has not been a catering glitch. Either the staff have not bothered to get out of bed (can’t say that I blame them) or the oven has broken down, or (a new one this) the bar ran out of whisky between Plymouth and Birmingham and the oven was knackered again – Great Heavens to Murgatroyd! What a way to run a railway!

But why, I hear you cry, go to Birmingham anyway? Can you not find enough to be miserable about in Newcastle? The answer to that last one is – yes. Dammit! I can be miserable in Alnwick – just like everybody else and cheaper too. If you really want to know, I was going to Birmingham to have lunch with the production team of the Archers. This may surprise you, as I have written rude things about the Archers in the past and Ms Whitburn (the Burra Memsahib) of the show has admitted that I have cut her to the quick on occasion. But I took part in a debate about the programme at the Game Fair organised by the Daily Telegraph – it was speaking to me (and paying me) in those days. At the lunch afterwards I sat next to Graham Harvey, the Agricultural Story Editor and we established a certain rapport. As a result of this, I became a ‘Hunting Consultant’ to the Archers and have helped to steer them around a few boggy places and over some tricky fences. For this they have been grateful, so I was invited to Pebble Mill for lunch and to meet the production and writing team at one of their script conferences. I was also asked to bring my hunting horn and my voice so that they could record some ‘authentic’ hunting noises. It was only after I had agreed to do this that I realised that I had not blown a hunting horn since 1987 and that my voice was somewhat stained by years of whisky and pipe smoke. The recording went better than I had dared hope and after a couple of discords, the old, hard won, skills, more of less, reasserted themselves.

We had a very jolly lunch and then a question session for the team. They are all charming people and are determined to make their programme as authentic as possible. So no more Archer bashing – ‘be to their virtues ever kind and to their faults a little blind.’ Bless ‘em all and my grateful thanks for their kindness.

Did you know that it is estimated that a certain predator murders c.70 million small birds and mammals every year and we wonder about the dearth of songbirds in our countryside. What is this fell and foul creature, you may ask? The answer is the common or garden (and it is nearly always in someone else’s garden) domestic moggy. I hate the buggers. Such is the perverse nature of the cat that it always makes straight for cat haters like me. It wants to climb into the lap of my carefully brushed suit, or sharpen its claws on a trouser leg:

“Oh look!” cries the besotted owner – “Tiddles has taken a real fancy for you.” The hell it has – it kens fine that I would happily wring its blasted neck, but that my natural good manners forbid me from ‘terminating it with extreme prejudice’ in front of its doting mistress. The lady will get most distressed, if I point out Tiddle’s propensity for slaughtering the local fauna and will tell me that the cat is only following its natural instincts. It is my natural instinct to hunt and yet various ‘bunny hugging’ organisations are estimated to have spent £30,000,000 over the last five years trying to put the kibosh on my natural instincts. It is a guinea to a gooseberry that most of that money has been lifted out of the purses of cat loving old ladies, who let their foul felines roam free without let or hindrance. There is some strange contradiction there. I suppose there could be said to be a similar contradiction in the fact that I am fond of foxes but also fond of hunting them. One of the good things about foxes is that they like a nice meal of a moggy and for this I would forgive them much.

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NEWCASTLE JOURNAL - 12.3.04
Pip, my Lucas Terrier, loves going hunting and loves riding on the quad. He travels in a breadbasket on the back. In this, he can look out beside my considerable rear echelon, with his ears streaming in the wind. Sometimes he hops off and runs alongside – I have clocked him at 24 kph – and it is amazing how his short little legs can cover the ground, but he is hard as an otter and very, very fit. When he has had enough of running, he hops back onto the quad. He can always tell when it is a hunting day and refuses to eat his breakfast. Monday is normally a hunting day and he knows it. Last Monday hunting was cancelled due to the snow, but no one had told Pip. I keep my hunting kit in a large bag in the loo. Our normal departure time came and went, so just in case it had slipped my mind, he burrowed into the bag, brought out my cap and neck warmer, piled them up on the mat by the back door and sat on them to prevent me slipping out without him. I am convinced that dogs who habitually live alongside humans develop an extra layer of instinct, or intelligence of human vibrations. Hounds too are highly intelligent. The late great Sir Alfred Goodson, of College Valley fame, was a genius at breeding animals. It was said of him that he could put two bricks together and breed a breezeblock. He used to say that he had bred his hounds to do everything except get themselves to the meet, but that it was only a matter of time before they learned to buy their own bus tickets. This dates him somewhat, as even the most intelligent hound would be hard put to find a bus on which it could buy a ticket today.

Pip and I went out with our local hunt the other day. I seldom do this, because I hunted those hounds for several years and I could not bear going to meets and being fondly greeted by old and much loved canine friends. I have also always believed in the old dictum – “Ex-masters are vermin in their own country” – the urge to interfere can become dangerously strong. So I cleared out and went to hunt with the Border, where I can grumble about the management with a clear conscience. Not that I have ever found much to grumble about with the Border, where one of the best packs of hound in Britain hunt beautifully for their laid back genius of a Master. Sadly, Anno Domini is creeping upon him as its does upon us all and a couple of nasty accidents have not helped him. It is fortunate that he has had the sense to realise this and is bringing on a young man of exceptional ability and vigour, who is making a fine fist of hunting hounds. Joseph is definitely what used to be called – ‘a coming man.’

But back to the locals - I had decided to walk, both for the good of my body and soul – a pair of boots and a good stick being a splendid specific for both. It was a glorious early spring day and we had a great walk out along the ridge. From there there was a fine view all around and every prospect brought back memories of great hunts of many years ago and also of some almighty cock-ups. It was too nice a day to be a good hunting day, but there were other things to see and watch – the effortless soaring of the buzzards, a hunting stoat who stood on his hind legs to watch us pass; the big jack hare that jumped up in front of us – well, no right minded dog could resist that. I watched the mini hunt disappear over the hilltop – “catch that one if you can you little bugger,” I said to myself. Ten minutes later he caught me up – “did you catch it?” I asked. Pip grinned at me. Every little pool of sun-warmed water was full of frogs all doing whatever it is that frogs do at this time of year and if you don’t know what that is, ask your father. We saw little hunting and finally caught up with the hunt just as it was heading for home – ah well, never mind – Pip and I had had a wonderful walk.

“Write about this.” Said a man at the meet. He had been into to Council Offices and found everybody working in their shirtsleeves in a green house atmosphere. Why, he inquired, did they not turn the heating down 10 degrees and put their jackets on? This would not only save on energy costs and thereby Council Tax, but it would also help the wool trade. Shock! Horror! It seems that if you work in a sedentary job, you are legally entitled to a minimum temperature. I think that a little lateral think is required here. If all office workers were obliged to wear 25-ounce tweeds, both they and the tweed industry would be healthier and the workers would positively beg for the heating to be turned down – worth a thought.

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NEWCASTLE JOURNAL - 5.3.04
I hate snow. It clogs up everything. Every little job outside takes extra time. Doors have to be dug out. Walking is a plodging chore. There is no hunting. I am only grateful that I no longer have any sheep. Well, you might say, if the gadgy does not like snow, why does he live in Northumberland? which is a fair enough point. The answer is that it does not always snow in Northumberland and when it does not, there is nowhere else in England I would rather live. I love the country; the people tolerate me (on the whole) and it has a hard, clean, dry climate, which I prize. I was bred and buttered in Cornwall, which is warm and wet and everyone suffers from terminal mildew. This means that any sense of urgency is washed away. Telephone any artisan for an urgent repair job and the reply will always be that they will be over ‘dreckly’. ‘Dreckly’ is the Cornish for ‘manana’, but lacks the urgency of the Spanish word. ‘Dreckly’ can mean anything from a week to 6 months. There is no Northumbrian equivalent.

It is snowing again – I want to go and live somewhere warm by the sea, where it never does. Please, please, do not bother to write to me about the snows of 1947 and 1962 / 63. I remember them both. I especially remember the winter of ’62 / ‘63 because I lived in a caravan that winter. It had a coke stove that pumped out carbon monoxide and I had to have a window permanently open to prevent myself becoming a tragic statistic. One of the results of my open window policy was that my embryonic moustache used to be frozen solid every night – happy days.

I was listening to the Beeb the other morning. It had a bit on Hen Harriers and how the wicked gamekeepers were doing for them by destroying their habitat. This was not explained, but was an obvious and ignorant reference to heather burning. The ‘Muir Burn’ is a vital ingredient in the good management of heather. A friend of mine has a patch of heather hill opposite his steading, which some quango or other has forbidden him from burning. This is typical bloody-minded ignorance. The hill side is now a knee-deep expanse of old woody heather plants, of use to neither man, beast nor bird. A good burn clears out the old growth and allows the healthy re-growth of tender young heather. It is this young growth that provides feed both for sheep and for young Grouse, the burn being done in the early spring before the Grouse nest. The old woody heather is good only for ticks, which are a menace both to sheep and Grouse. The burning helps to control the ticks. This in turn helps to increase the number of Grouse chicks for the Hen Harriers to feed on. In nature, what goes around comes around. I do not always see eye to eye with every gamekeeper, but in this case I am as one with them. Anyone who doubts what I say should study the report of the Langham Project, where leaving things to nature and quangos has meant no Grouse and no Hen Harriers.

It has nearly stopped snowing. I shall take the dogs out.

Dogs, being perverse creatures, love snow – they revel in it, rolling and playing. My old Rottweiler used to love diving head first into drifts and then digging furiously. My terrier who suffers from low ground clearance gets badly balled up. As I also have short legs, I sympathise with him and make plenty of quad tracks where walking for both of us is easier.

We really must be grateful to the EU – it has averted disaster yet again. It has saved us from the hidden perils of the Rocking Horse. As far as I know there have been no fatal falls from Rocking Horses, but the disaster is there waiting to happen. Now we have been saved by order EN71 – 8 which limits the height of the RH to 600mm (approx 2 feet in English). This will effectively ruin the traditional craftsmen who made the lovely old-fashioned RH, but no child will now be in danger of breaking a collar bone (traditionally the first thing you break in a fall from a horse). Now it appears that the whole thing was a ‘Straight Banana’ (remember them?). The 600mm limit was meant to apply only to ‘outdoor spring loaded RHs’ (whatever they may be) and not to the trad type – what a relief. But cheer not, EN71 – 8 has now been published. The 600mm limit is now a ‘Harmonised Standard’ and like the Law of the Medes and Persians (see Bible) it ‘changeth not’. Any traditional RH is now Illegal and should be humanely dispatched.

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