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WEEKEND TELEGRAPH - 30.3.03
It was a golden day. The sun shone from a cloudless sky on rolling miles
of brown grass and bracken and turned them gold. There was ice on the
puddles and a bite in the air. There could be no better day to be out
on the hills and no better day for a great occasion. Once a year the
Ullswater, one of the famous Lakeland packs, comes and spends a weekend
with my hunt - the Border, hunting Saturday and Sunday, with some serious
supping and singing in between. People come from all over Britain for
this 'fest'. This year there were people from Perth and people from
Cornwall and from all stations in between - even a party from Virginia.
There were many well-worn hands to shake and many traditional insults
to exchange. In case you are imagining ranks of gleaming horses - forget
it. The Ullswater stride their craggy fells in huge tackety boots,
the Border, with their more rolling hills, prefer their quads. I did
in fact count 3 horses and someone else counted 54 quads and as to
people- the Lord love us- I wouldn't begin to know how many. It is
a wild spot where we met - a place that seldom sees a human apart from
the shepherd on his quad. So the foxes are little disturbed and there
were plenty afoot in the warm March sunshine. There are no coverts
here in the sense of copse or spinney, the foxes lie out in the rusher
beds, or snug amongst the 'bull snouts' (big grass tussocks. This day
they were lying out in the sunshine. I left the road, which is really
only a cart track and where the westbound traffic had come head to
head with the Eastbound and I thought them best left to use their initiative.
The quad crept out through the bog and up below the cairn, where I
could sit in the sun and glass the surrounds. The distant ridge of
Hindberry was lined with people, little chance of the fox going that
way and certain sure there would be a fox in the thick rusher-bed at
the Burn Head. There was and he waited not upon the order of his going,
nor should he with the combined pack, screaming on his brush. Several
times during the day, people remarked how well the two lots of hounds
hunted together, but then their breeding and type are very similar.
There was a lot of local hunting in the morning with catchy scent,
but hounds caught 3 foxes. It was cooler in the afternoon with a hint
of frost coming in. "They'll run now if they find," says
I to myself (well, no one listens to me). They put a fox off at the
top of the Hope (a 'hope' is a blind valley) and after some uncertainty
where he ran the road, hounds settled to the scent and began to fly.
You have to see some of our top quad men cross the country to believe
it - it frightens me just to watch them. But a hunted fox seldom runs
in straight line, he runs in a big curve and if you have a little fox
sense, you can work out the curve and bisect it. The track I took is
little more than a sheep trod. It is all potholes and bog holes, but
I bumped and cursed my way along it and ahha! Tiny distant figures
flying along the skyline. I turned off on another track that is all
bog holes and pot holes and came down to the Dunhope Burn Head and
crossed by the stell. Uphill on sound white grass now and out onto
the fine vantage point of the Bell Hill - just in time to hear hounds
catch their fox in the wood below - it was indeed a golden day
DAILY TELEGRAPH - 8.3.03
"
Tiggerish" said my mother with that special maternal sniff. She
is quite right of course - Dexter does seem to be made entirely of springs
and appears to be able to go four different ways at the same time. I
suppose I had better explain: Once upon a time, there was born unto a
very well bred, working, German Wire Haired Pointer (GWP) bitch a litter
of impeccable pedigree. One of the dog puppies was named Dexter. This
is a fine old Foxhound name and quite good enough for a GWP. Dexter had
an unsettled childhood, in that his original purchaser died. With help
from the breeder and the GWP Rescue organisation. A new home was found,
with sheep, ponies, chickens and a very senior cat - ideal, you might
think. Dexter was frightened of the sheep (good). He liked to point the
chickens (no harm in that). The problem arose as so many problems do,
with the cat. Dexter loved to retrieve the cat. He would chase it, catch
it and carry it proudly back to the house. The cat suffered no physical
harm in Dexter's soft gundog mouth, but its psychological nose was firmly
out of joint. So it was back to the breeder and back on the books of
the 'Rescue'. By this time he was 16 months old and, as the breeder said
pretty much a 'blank cheque' - his training was negligible but so were
his bad habits. This is where serendipity came into play. It so happened
that I rang up Norman, the head Ranger of Grizedale Forest. Tag my GWP
deer dog is getting old. I knew that Norman used GWPs in his work. Norman
knew me and of course he knew the lady who ran the Rescue Center. She
knew Mr Bandfield the Breeder and also knew all about Dexter. Thus was
the circle squared. The Captain and I drove 200 miles south on the M6,
whilst Mr Bandfield drove the same distance North and Dexter came home
with us to his 4th and I hope last home. He is a beautiful and charming
dog, wild as a fitch-ferret, but nothing that some firm but gentle tutelage
cannot put right. He and Tag share a kennel which is nice for the old
bitch. She has been lonely since her long time companion, Oz the old
Kelpie, was put down. I worried about having another dog, in case it
became a romantic roamer (a bloody nuisance). I understand that in the
Royal Navy a male ship's cat always has the magazine to its main armament
removed and becomes (in naval parlance) an 'Uncle Cat'. Dexter is an
'Uncle Dog', so that is one less thing to worry about. I know from letters
that readers like to hear about the dogs. Pip the Lucas Terrier has become
a hairy bundle of bone and muscle - size for size he must be one of the
strongest little dogs, I have known. He and Shocky the Rottweiler play
endless games. Pip never complains even when the bitch carries out of
the room by the scruff of his neck. He adores going hunting and as soon
as the thermoses appear on the kitchen table he goes and sits firmly
by the back door, awaiting the arrival of the Captain who drives him
in the pick up. He has not met a fox yet, but if he sees one out of the
window, he goes into a paroxysm of fury. His time will come. He is still
young enough. A day's hunting is seldom without incident. We were travelling
home in the dark - the Captain was driving, I was snoring and Pip curled
up in my lap. Suddenly there was an almighty crash from the trailer behind
and a nasty grinding sound: "What's happened?" I cried "I
don't know," said the imperturbable Captain - " but there's
a wheel just rolling past my window.
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