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Extract from ‘Vergin on the Ridiculous’ by Dalesman (see Christmas books)
Foreword by Midge Todhunter
Dalesman was one of the most renowned hunting characters of the 20th Century. He was also an adventurer, and a more colourful life - it is difficult to image. But then if we each tot-up our life’s experiences we may astound ourselves with what we have done with our time on this earth.
Adopted by Cumberland, (CN de Courcy-Parry) - Parry as we knew him - was a living legend in these parts, mainly for his exploits with hounds: beagles, harriers, fell hounds, foxhounds, and otterhounds - he knew and loved them all.
I met Parry on several occasions, and the things I most remember about him were the eternal twinkle in his eye - and the small form of a tongue-in-cheek, both which always accompanied the raconteur in him. He could tell a tale with the best of ‘em, but his one-to-one conversations were enthralling. Some things he told me are not printable here.
A highly likeable fellow, he’d a passion for venery, and for the fairer-sex. He had the charm to coax all sorts of people - into doing all sorts of things. The story goes that when he kept a pack of beagles at Whitefield, near Ireby in Cumbria - he relied on the voluntary services of one local young lady Bridget, who’s Sunday morning duties were to skin all the fallen stock dropped off at the kennels by nearby farmers. After this, Bridget wiped her hands on her overalls - and prepared a cake which she duly baked for afternoon tea. (Peoples stomachs were more robust in those days!)
But the biggest quandary still surrounds Parry: was he the man that shot dead Topliss, the fugitive Army deserter on the run after murdering a taxi driver on the A303 near Andover? There are many who can tell all there is to know about Topliss. I could take you to the very gateway where he was shot, but no one - it seems - can verify who pulled the trigger that grey afternoon in 1920 in Plumpton village on the A6 in Cumberland. Parry took that one to his grave.
One of Parry’s more legendary eras was when he kept the Anchor Inn near Clun in Wales; or as he rather more accurately put it his autobiography ‘Here lies my Story’: “the Anchor Inn kept us”. Such was life then, he’d bought the pub on the way home from a long day’s hunting, and needless to say it became a mecca for sporting men from far and wide. His hounds were kennelled there, and the pub even held its own Puppy Shows.
It is during Parry’s time at the Anchor Inn that his aptitude for writing fully emerged and he began writing for Horse & Hound under the pen name Dalesman. He goes down in history as one of the great hunting writers, but the beautiful prose and verse he wrote ‘Alone with the Memory’ was written one winter’s night by the fire side in the Anchor Inn. It still so easily fires the imagination to this day.
‘Alone with the Memory’: an extract from ‘Vergin on the Ridiculous’ by Dalesman (CN de Courcy-Parry) published by David A H Grayling.
'Dalesman'
The wind rages and the snowflakes whirl around the old Anchor Inn; here on the summit of the hills, we are catching the full force of the storm. No hunting this week, and at last I have caught up with the correspondence and written replies to all the letters that I have not lost or mistaken for bills and failed to open.
And here I am before the fire for the first evening in three months, and the flames flicker, blue, gold, and yellow, and the smoke curls up the chimney, and I sit alone with my thoughts. Away they fly on the wings of the storm, over the Kerry Hills, and into the vale by Welshpool, across the Cheshire Plain to Lancashire, to dwell a moment with “John J.” whom I expect, even on such a night as this, is not sitting before his fire at Wheelton; for with wars and rumours of wars upon us there is no rest for those who have the welfare of our country so much at heart as he has.
So my thoughts fly on up Morecambe Bay to Kendal Town, over High Street to Patterdale, where once again they rest awhile, with Salkeld, Brait, Robin, Tom Teasdale, ‘lal Geordie and dear old Hunty; but still on they go over Helvellyn to Skiddaw and all that land that lies beside the Solway Sea, where the marsh birds call and the little white houses defy storm. Home. Last week someone wrote to me from Wigton:- “I saw Rowley (Harker) with his hounds above Dentonside, and very well they all looked.”
The flames die down, glow fitfully awhile, and blaze again, and I wonder if someone wrote to a friend some hundred-odd years ago:- “I saw John Peel and his hounds above Dentonside, and very well they all looked.” I trust so.
Is it snowing tonight, Joe, at Uldale? Are the sheep come down to shelter behind the little stone house on Longlands Fell where once I dwelt so happily? Longlands Fell, and just a mile away down the valley towards Ireby lies Ruthwaite, where John Peel used to live and kennel his hounds – Ranter, Ringwood, Bellman and those others that are not so well remembered. The old stone kennels still stand there deserted. These lines were written shortly before Peel’s death, on the death of his favourite hounds:-
Towler and Ruby both are gone –
The blithest hounds on Reynard’s track;
No more at early morn they’re seen
In Dentonside to lead the pack.
Yes, Towler and Ruby in truth are gone,
But Peel has their sons of equal faith:
Peel has hounds that can travel on
From a “view halloa” to the scene of death.
Tho’ Towler’s gone, and Ruby, too
There’s Bellman’s truth who can deny?
There’s Ruler’s speed and Rattler’s game
When Reynard is roused in a morning sly.
There’s Shifty, too, on woodland ground
Or dewy mead a faithful slave;
There’s Glory and Jingler, none more brave,
Save Champion’s death-knell and the grave.
Whilst Towler and Ruby both are gone,
There’s Royal’s blood which stands so high;
Old Briton still, and bold Rockwood,
Whom the cunning varmint can’t defy.
***********
The fire dies down, the clock strikes midnight, a horse stamps in his box, a hound puppy cries uneasily in his sleep, and all is still; the snow drives relentlessly against the window, and over all is the eternal quiet of a winter’s night amongst the hills. Before I bid you goodnight I will copy for you some of the ‘Monody’ written by Woodcock Graves in Tasmania upon hearing of the death of his greatest friend, John Peel. I give it to you for its very sincerity:-
O heave not my heart, for this tear from mine eye
I would dash it were it not that I feel
That the time will be soon when all hunters shall die.
So I’ll drop that one down for John Peel.
And turn up the glass,
And so let the sand pass
From one end to t’other – may be
Again death may strike,
But can ne’er on the like,
Or the next stroke may fall upon me.
Whene’er in the chase he was first of the field,
Who has gone to “the land o’ the leal”;
What made the woods ring till then stubborn oak reel’d
But the hounds and the horn of John Peel?
Old Caldew may roll,
And the shepherd may stroll,
And listen, but listen in vain;
Who gave the horn-blast
Now has blown out his last –
Alas! He shall ne’er blow again.
Then hang up the horn on the blighted old tree,
That some hunter that passeth may kneel;
And tho’ he ne’er sound it, still so may be
That he pass through a sigh for John Peel.
Then fill up the glass,
And though dumb let it pass
To him in “the land o’ the leal”;
Like him far away
Who tendered this lay,
Remember the hunter John Peel.
DALESMAN