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NEWCASTLE JOURNAL 26.5.05

That’s it – done and dusted and a heavy sigh of relief from me and, I should think, all concerned. I am talking about The Boy’s wedding. His name is Martin, by the way, I did manage to find that out just in time – not that it matters much – we have always addressed each other as ‘Boy’ and ‘Bear’. It all went very well. The main problem was logistical. The Bride lived in Sussex. This meant that the entire Poole family had to fold its tents and decamp to Sussex for the duration. Sussex is still a very pretty county with beautiful oak woods. The fact that it manages to retain any rural charm, it owes to the fact that it still contains large and well preserved landed estates. Set foot beyond their boundaries and you are into a suburban night mare of traffic, clogged arterial roads and hideous ribbon development. At one time it would have been referred to as ‘stockbroker belt’ (rather like the Tyne Valley) but I am not sure if stockbrokers still exist. Modern Sussex is more your ‘urban resettlement area’ and service satellites for that modern example of hell, Gatwick Airport. Anyway, we packed the dogs off to kennels, packed up my mother, who travels with umpteen cases and festooned with mysterious packages, bulging bags and baskets and walking sticks that stick everywhere and decamped. The family of the Bride is a very highly organised business unit and we were supplied with endless maps, movement orders of the sort readily recognisable to any ex-Military person, which were guaranteed to get the wrong units in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was fortunate that we were blessed with and ultra efficient Adjutant, in the person of ‘The Best Man’. He cut through all the pale blue (well, it was a wedding) tape, ironed out all the wrinkles, soothed the Groom’s fevered brow and got everyone to the right church (there were five other weddings in the area on the same afternoon) at the right time. He could not be blamed for the weather. Sussex (as ‘any fule kno’) is on the English Channel Coast. Weather runs up the Channel in pulses. We entered the pleasant little church in glorious sunshine and began the obligatory wait for the Bride… and waited…and waited. The Groom began to show some small signs of stress. The BM showed splendid close back – up. The organist went through his repertoire for the umpteenth time. What we, snug inside the church, could not know was that just as the Bride was making her final approach, the Channel weather had pulsed and released a positive monsoon. This caused the bridal car to go ‘round the block’ again… again… and again, until a break in the wrack allowed the very beautiful Bride a brief window to get herself and her very beautiful dress into the church unscathed. The organist revived and the service began. It was the ‘new order of service’ which I, as a committed Cranmer man, had not expected to enjoy. In fact it was simple, pleasant and mercifully short with good old hymns – the only problem there was that the organist, his nerves probably hanging by a thread, played them all in a key so high as to be unreachable to most of the congregation. I settled for humming along. It was then back to ‘Theirs’ for a slap up do with Champagne and nibbles and speeches. The Bride’s father had personally assured me that his speech would be ‘mercifully short’ as he disapproved of long speeches. If in the event he got a little carried away (quite a long way, actually) one could hardly blame him. She was, and is, his only daughter. Anyway, I had managed to get a couple of fighting drams smuggled out to me by a kindly son of the house. We were then given a very good dinner in the marquee. This was followed by dancing to a band that made up for its lack of musical talent by the production of totally untalented noise – the young seemed to enjoy it. There were some very kind ladies who suggested that I dance. I had to decline. The shrapnel in my knee was playing up. In fact, and I do hope that you will regard this as a confidence, I always carry a piece of shrapnel in my wallet and insert in it in the knee as the occasion demands. This means that I can hobble off to my bed at a reasonable hour and sleep the sleep of the just – old dogs for hard roads.

Anyway, the deed is done. They are a beautiful couple and I am sure that their union will be truly blessed. I have already caught my wife and my mother knitting furiously when they think I am not looking.

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NEWCASTLE JOURNAL 19.5.05

People ask me why there seems to be a steady supply of rural houses for sale in France? The answer lies in the different attitudes to the Countryside in the two nations. With the French, as soon as they can aspire to be regarded as ‘Middle Class’ they quit rural life for an apartment in the City. They think that this gives them social cachet. In spite of France being a Republic and England being a Kingdom, French society is much more rigidly stratified than its English counterpart. The French upper classes are divided into to two – ‘Ancien Famille’ (before Napoleon) and Nouveau Famille’ (after Napoleon). Neither will mix socially with the Middle Classes. I remember being at a drinks party in Chantilly some years ago. I was talking to a very large Baron and told him that I was going to the Bourbonnais:

“The Bourbonnais, the Bourbonnais – I know nobody in the Bourbonnais, except Madame de Monspey”. This consigned several thousand innocent Bourgeoisies to the social dustbin. Madame de Monspey is in fact a Countess, but the French think it rather bad form to use their titles in public. You are supposed to know and if you don’t know then you are a person of no consequence.

The English situation is different. People now fight to move to the countryside and (automatically, they think) become Country Gentry. This does not work. The fact of living in the Country no more makes anyone a ‘Countryman’ than going to live in France will make me a Frenchman. I suppose that everyone was once a country person, until they were drawn to the Cities –leaving the Countryside to Peasants like me. This seemed to work very well until the Urbs rediscovered Rural England and decided to reclaim what they consider to be their birthright. To achieve this they feel that they have to recolonise the Countryside. It is not surprising that we Peasants are a bit miffed about this. We were left to care for and maintain rural England, when the rest of the family went swanning off to ‘make money faster in the air of dark roomed towns’. We think that, on the whole, we have made a pretty good job of it, so we feel that we are entitled to feel a bit hacked off, when people who have been absent for generations, suddenly reappear and tell us that the Countryside belongs to them and we can all just bugger off and … well, just bugger off and take all our nasty habits with us, because they are going to take away our houses and frolic over our lands in a nice PC way. They can get away with this because we Peasants are such a tiny percentage of the total population.

The situation in France is very different because of the Code Napoleon which (roughly) says that all inheritance shall be divided amongst all the Offspring. What this means in practice is that Nicole and Alberique may work the family farm, but the ownership is split between various Aunts, Uncles and God knows how many cousins and all their offspring. This has deep political consequences, because when it comes to it all these Insurance Brokers, Lawyers, Gendarmes and any other damned things you chose will all ‘Vote the Farm’. This is why the French Politicians tread very delicately in the countryside. The other reason is that the French Peasants (peasant is a very respectable and respectful position in French Society) are very quick to take umbrage and to block roads and railways, set fire to Government Offices and other jolly pranks. The Peasants are a wasp nest that Governments push their sticks into at their peril.

It is the same with Hunting. The right to hunt was one of the planks in the platform of the French Revolution. La Chasse is a constitutional right and you better believe it, Buster.

Let us talk about Government spending and take a sideways look at it. NuLab is always boasting about how much of our money it is spending on us. According to my old friend Bruce Anderson, who knows these things, the Government is now spending £600,000,000,000 per annum. Put in digestible figures this means £10,000 per annum for every man, woman, child and undecided in the country. Every man, woman, child and undecided should ask themselves the simple question – do I feel that I am £10,000 better off? And then ask yourself how you will feel when you dig your spoon into the egg of your pension and find that the yoke is missing, because Chancellor Brown has already dug in and removed it and shoved it into that £600,000,000,000 that has already been spent on you last year, even if you did not know it. Of course any little hiccup in the pension will not be felt by politicians and civil servants. Their pensions are copper bottomed, 22 carat and A1 at Lloyds. Does that not make you feel better?

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NEWCASTLE JOURNAL 12.5.05

The other night some friends took the Missus and me to the Alnwick Tree House for a meal. I had not seen the place before. My first impression was ‘Weird’ – I can only suppose that the designer had been reared on the Brothers Grimm’s Fairy Tales and the unexpurgated version at that. These are weird in the extreme. Whilst these do much to explain the Mittel European psyche, which someone once described as being – ‘shaped by a thousand miles of screaming forest’, they are also enough to give any child the screaming ab-dabs and to instil a lifetime’s fear of having your ankle grabbed by a troll if you go out after dark. My first reaction on seeing this extraordinary building was – ‘I wonder if they have boiled baby on the menu’. In fact the food and the service were excellent and would not frighten anybody – until they got the bill, that is. But by that time, you will be prepared to pay almost anything to escape from the acute discomfort of the chairs – the designer’s delightful flights of fancy were the diners’ night mare. In fact I would suggest to Her Grace that she send some of her trolls to bludgeon the bugger and tie him to one of his chairs for 24 hours. He, or even she, should be tenderised and ready for the oven by then. To lesser mortals I would strongly recommend that they take their own cushions for the evening.

It was a hard decision and one that went all against my masculine instincts. Poor little Pip, my terrier, had to go to the vet for what might be termed ‘the unkindest cut of all’. The vet had recommended this because he said that the little dog had an excess of testosterone, which could possibly lead to problems and even cancer of the prostate in years to come so the deed was done and Pip seems none the worse for it and there have been no ill affects as far as I can see, except that he has now developed a deep seated antipathy to veterinarians, for which I can hardly blame him. The other thing that worries me is that the Dragon Lady has taken to looking at me in a sinister and thoughtful way.

A herding friend of mine was short of a collie-dog for the lambing, so he went to look at one, somewhere on the edge of the known world, which, as everyone knows, is somewhere not too far west of Alwinton. The laddie brought out the dog for inspection. It was good sort of dog:

“Watch this” said the laddie and he threw a stick across the burn. The dog ran across the surface of the burn, picked up the stick and brought it back, still running along the surface. At my friend’s request the performance was repeated:

“By the cringe” I said “and did you buy this wonder dog?”

“Na, Na, I thowt aboot it right enough. He was a canny enough dog, but whit would a hill herr’d want wi’ a dog that canna swim?”

I think that I may have told you about a Newt being found in the garage. I have always had something of an affection for Newts – rather jolly little creatures I thought. But, have you ever wondered, as I have, how the expression describing a pallatic person as being ‘pissed as a newt’ came about. I mean on the face of it, it seems a woeful slander against a harmless little creature, which, to the best of my knowledge and belief, lives a harmless and totally alcohol free existence. Now all has been revealed and the answer lies in the spelling of ‘newt’. In the beginning, it was not ‘newt’ nut ‘NEUT’. The saying originated in the Royal Navy during the Hitler War, which I see the BBC now refers to as the ‘People’s War’ in spite of the fact that we cannot blame Blair for that one. You may remember that during that unpleasantness Sweden remained neutral, but that did not prevent our Royal Navy maintaining cordial relations with the Royal Swedish Navy. The perception of the Royal Navy was that the Royal Swedish Navy ships ran not only on diesel fuel but also on another very spirited fuel called ‘Aquavit’. In other words and not to put too fine a point of it, the officers of the RSN were often gysend, to use a fine Northumbrian word. And that, my children, is how the phrase – ‘pissed as a Neut’ passed into folklore.

The Countryside Alliance claims and I have no reason to doubt, that its turn out of members, to help in various border line constituencies, resulted in the dismissal of some 50 MPs who had voted for a Hunting Ban and good riddance to bad rubbish as Nanny used to say.

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NEWCASTLE JOURNAL - 05/05/05

May 1st used to be one of the magical dates in the hunting calendar, it being the beginning of the hunting year – the date when all mastership and staff changes actually happened. This year the date that we are all waiting for is May 5th. I think that some football chappy said something about how some people considered Foot ball to be a matter of life and death, but, he said, that is nonsense – it is much more important than that. I suspect that there are many people who feel the same about hunting. Hunting is the drip feed that keeps them alive and all the vital organs functioning properly – take that drip away from them and their souls will shrivel and die. I wonder what sort of state we shall be in by the time that you read this. At the time of writing hunting is not dead, but it is in intensive care – your vote is vital.

May 1st was when the bicycles came out from the shed at the kennels. There they had lain since they were chucked there at the end of the bicycle exercise season last year. Little has appeared in literature concerning the Kennel Bicycle. The KB has come down in the world. Once it was spanking new and shining the love of someone’s life. Since that happy time it has slid down the social scale; has suffered ill usage and abuse; hasn’t had a sniff of an oil can or benefit of spanner, these many years. It has been shut up in cobwebby sheds and is dragged out into the daylight, rusty and creaking, flat of tyre and slack of chain. In the circumstances it can hardly be blamed for having ‘attitude’. This is a being into whose soul the iron has well and truly entered. It is hardly surprising that it regards all humans and, most especially its rider, with a slow fire of hatred. Its calloused seat will play pop with the more delicate areas of the human body that it may come into contact with. It will drop you out the front door, by getting your thong thoroughly enmeshed in its chain. It will then gore you with its twisted handle bars. Halfway across the main road, it will shed its chain altogether, leaving you pedalling furiously and fruitlessly whilst a quarry lorry bears down on you from the North and a cauliflower lorry from Epagne sur Lorn is closing in from the south. Hopkins always said that I was the worst man on a bike that he had ever seen. He used to ‘beer out’ at the Nag & Dog on highly coloured accounts of my mishaps. Like the time that my front wheel suddenly turned square and dropped me in the ditch. Hounds thought this a great game and all piled in on top of me. I reckon that 20 couple of hounds weigh a ton and if they don’t, it damn well feels like it. When I extracted myself at last, I found Hopkins doubled up and rendered incapable with laughter. It was time to assert my magisterial authority. So I picked up his bike and trundled home with hounds, leaving him with a square wheeled bike and 5 miles of a hack home. That wiped the greasy grin off his face.

Later in the summer we would move onto horses. In the good old, bad old days, many hunts would have ponies, or cobs, especially for hound exercise and Autumn Hunting. This was a good way of saving on the mileage of the ‘main stream’ hunters. The theory was that the cobs could then be sold at a profit as ‘The Blankshire Cub Hunters’ ( that was before ‘Autumn Hunting’ had been invented) and could be bought with an easy mind, by the halt, the lame, the old and the nervous, as a patent safety and comfortable transport of delight. Like everything to do with horses, the emptor should jolly well caveat. At least with the wretched kennel bicycle you could throw it in the ditch, whilst you removed the thorn from old ‘Statesman’s’ pad and not look up to see your conveyance flying down the road towards the stables, reins and stirrups flying and with the entire ‘Young Entry’ in delirious and vocal pursuit.

Hound exercise was a necessary and important part of kennel routine, but the timing had to be right. I can still remember, with a shudder, summers when the harvest was delayed. You may know something more mentally debilitating than escorting a Hunting fit pack of hounds through acres of sodden standing corn. It palled a bit. I remember sitting next to a very senior MFH, who was extolling the joys of hound exercise – the song of the blackbird, the dew laden grass, the snail on the thorn, etc, etc:

“But surely” I said in my most respectful voice, “even so you must get fed up after 6 weeks or so?” He looked at me in genuine amazement:

“My Dear, Old Boy, I only go once a year.”

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