Christmas Books
"VERGIN' ON THE RIDICULOUS"
(Formerly "Foxhunting for Children & other Simple Tales")
by
"DALESMAN"
Due to be published in time for Christmas.
For more details email admin@davidgraylingbooks.com
Order from www.davidgraylingbooks.com
Price is £25.00 | Only 200 copies | P&P is £3.00
'Dalesman'
I first discovered Dalesman in the late ‘40s & early ‘50s, as my weekly readings migrated from "Beano" and "Hotspur" to "Horse & Hound" and "Field Sports" magazines. The Horse & Hound pages were turned directly to Dalesman's weekly contributions, affording me a few minutes of interest, mirth and often undiluted delight.
In the early ‘50s, when my mother was Honorary Secretary of the Kendal & District Otterhounds, we would - each Saturday - wheel our way in her rickety Ford 8 up the wonderful rivers and valleys of the North West. It was during these magical days of post-war summers that I first saw this mystical charmer from the pages of H & H. We were on the Lune with an otter afoot, standing by a large pool on the lower reaches. I viewed the quarry silently slide out of a root on the other side of the pool - 20 yards away - into the deep water. I told the Master - Major Glenton Williams - what I had seen, and received a somewhat doubting glare in response. A voice from behind said "He's right Master". I turned round, and my mum whispered "That's Dalesman". The day transformed into a sparkling glow; this legendary scribe was there - a real live person - and one who had now boosted my fledgling ego beyond all measure.
It was many years later that I had the pleasure of getting to know "Bay" so well. I had moved to Westmorland, hunting with the fell packs when possible, and regularly hunting with the Bleasdale Beagles, turning hounds to John Leigh. I fail to recollect where and how we met; our friendship grew, and I was involved in various events with him, including the re-publishing of his fascinating autobiography "Here Lies my Story" on a shoe-string, with Bay begging his bank manager for funds, and me doing the publishing bit; he inscribed every one of the thousand copies we produced. I also took part with the Bleasdale Beagles and many other packs in the celebration of the bi-centenary of John Peel's baptism at Caldbeck in 1977; Bay was responsible for a large part of the organisation of this event, and also the Hunting Banquet the night before at Parkend, a mile from Caldbeck, with Michael Clayton, Michael and Jessie Lyne, Sir Rupert Buchanan-Jardine, Jim Meads and other leading members of the sporting world.
It was 20 years ago that Bay and John Tickner resolved to, with my help, re-issue this small work, employing a more suitable title, and enhanced with John's wonderful cartoons. Bay thought up the title, and John provided the appropriate artwork. Time passed along, and we never really finalised the detail. Bay was ageing and fading, and he passed away before I had sorted all the detail. However, I decided to go ahead and with Susan de Courcy-Parry's blessing I approached - politely doffing my cap - the bank manager. I received a courteous but negative response. The enterprise was shelved.
A few months ago, I discovered the Tickner drawings at the bottom of an office drawer, and decided that, with modern printing techniques, the task should be simple and viable.
I am most grateful to Michael Clayton for writing both the introduction and appendix for this new edition; he knew Bay as well as anyone, and better than most. My sincere thanks also to Susan, Dalesman's widow, who has given me permission to reprint this entertaining collection of stories. Edward Lyne, Michael Lyne's son, was Bay's Godson and he very kindly lent me a collection of Bay's letters, and also supplied the original painting of Dalesman and his hounds outside the Anchor Inn, on the Welsh Borders - I am most grateful for his help and generosity.
The Lynes and the de Courcy-Parrys were lifelong friends, so it is fitting that Michael Lyne's painting of Dalesman should be included with this small enterprise. It is thanks to Bay that I met Michael and Jessie Lyne - over a pie and pint at The George in Penrith. After that encounter, whenever I was in the Fairford area, I was always made welcome at the Lyne's home in Dunfield.
To give you the background of this delightful and obscure work, I can do no better than to include a letter which Bay wrote to a Mrs Jean Bryce in 1950:
"My Dear Mrs Jean Bryce, Your kind flattering letter has been on my table unanswered for two months. I plead idleness, not overwork. I hope you will call if ever you are both in the Lake District.
I have been writing for 25 years for H and H, but once I could express my sentiments and honest thoughts and put across simple, natural and direct ideas....Now all is changed. I am told "sentiment does not pay"...... Why everything in life must be valued by its cash worth is a very unpleasant feature of modern life.
I do not like shows, professional exhibitors, and I do not understand equitation nor high schooling, but this is all the rage and Horse and Hound demand the instructional, the uplift and the how to do it. Half my articles are rejected!
Re book -
I went to great trouble and collected all the best bits that I ever wrote, had them typed and sorted and read and tabulated, and indexed at the cost of about £100 and six months work.... Then NO PUBLISHER would accept it, or look at it. Horse and Hound turned it down flat.. I hawked it around becoming more and more tattered, to every possible publisher. Nothing doing. It was illustrated with photos and my great and personal friend Lionel Edwards was ready to illustrate it...ABSOLUTELY NOTHING DOING.... This was a great shock to the old pride.... So I collected a few of the comics and got our local printer to publish in book form.Cost five bob per book. I thought to sell at ten bob. After costs to make four bob per copy.
We printed three thousand. Three thousand four bobs. Very nice 12000/-, and publish the big book on the profits.
The book did not sell at all.. Out of the eighty thousand readers of H & H, only 200 bought the book. I lost £250.
So I decided that "Dalesman" was not a seller at all, and sent the m/s of the reminiscences "Memory's Ride" by Dalesman. 21/-, to America where it has been cut up into articles for their sporting papers AS A GIFT.
So you see, so you see, I can adventure no more. I must admit the correctness of the statement of the publishers that what happened to an unknown foxhunter on a Welsh mountain in 1935, can hold no interest in 1950. My sentiment is out of date, they say. This is a commercial age. So you see how things are...
However, I have designed a new hat. Commercial at last!
"The Hunter" being an addition to the sporting headwear of the day. Attractive, becoming and most practical. It really is most elegant and I hope will catch on, and solve the eternal problem. Shall I wear a hunting cap??? This looks a great deal nicer above every face.
It is being made by Mander and Allender, Hatters. 5-7 Dale Street, Liverpool.
Yours sincerely, "Dalesman".
So there you have it - the story from the man himself - in his own inimitable words, and a sad story if ever there was one; he told me he "burned barrowloads" when he was living in Ireland. We have been deprived of a book by Dalesman and one illustrated by Lionel Edwards, which rubs the salt in even harder.
I have added three more examples of this sparkling scribes' work, one explains his nom-de-plume, the second illustrates vividly his love of the Lakeland fells, and his unequalled skill with the pen, and the third is taken from his first published book - "Wanderings in the Pacific (1924). I have also removed the "Ivor Humbug" tales which appeared in the first edition, and replaced them with several "Mr. Fox" stories. I am most grateful to Horse & Hound magazine for allowing me to resurrect these.
I hope that this new issue of this entertaining and amusing work finds more buyers than Bay's first efforts fifty years and more ago. If it doesn't, perhaps I will be creating a similar epistle, using Bay's own words as I write to my bank manager - "How deep is my debit....."
David Grayling