Book Reviews
Endangered Species:
Foxhunting - The history, the passion and the fight for survival.
by Michael Clayton
ISBN: 1904057497
Swan Hill Press, Wykey House, Wykey, Shrewsbur. SY4 1JA
I well remember in the late 1960s watching the late evening news on BBC television and the reports from the war in Vietnam and Cambodia. The reporter was usually Michael Clayton, whose face had become nationally familiar reporting from a very inhospitable country and climate about a war which was a cause of major international concern. All my winter weekends at the time were occupied in hunting, which seemed a million miles away from the troubles in Vietnam. You can imagine my surprise when, in 1973, Michael Clayton became the editor of Horse and Hound and, even more importantly, the man behind “Foxfords Hunting Diary”, which was then read avidly each week by all hunting people.
Michael Clayton is a journalist in the old sense of the word. He started with the London Evening News as a reporter and then moved to the Evening Standard as deputy News Editor. He then went into television, first as News Editor of Southern TV and later as a BBC staff radio and television reporter, as previously mentioned. He then worked as presenter of “Today” on Radio 4 before moving to Horse and Hound.
'Endangered Species...' jacket
This is the seventh book written by Michael Clayton and is one of his best. It is a very well produced book with many photographic illustrations (most of which are by Jim Meads) and the writing is very reader-friendly, with the journalistic style of the author coming through quite clearly. The book essentially tells the story of foxhunting from the days of Hugo Meynell in the middle of the eighteenth century; through the Regency and Edwardian periods; two World Wars and the pressures created by a growing population and the spread of the motor car. It finishes in 2005 and covers, in well researched detail, the great characters and hunting countries throughout Britain and, later, North America, as well as the trials and tribulations foxhunting went through in between.
One of the things I liked about the book was the way the author covered the mistakes made by foxhunters in the past and their effect on public and political opinion. In this way it is a “warts and all” work – and the better for it. There is a very good section on the different types of Foxhounds throughout the world (even though I suspect the author would probably claim to be a horse man rather than a hound man) and a chapter on the fox itself. I particularly liked the chapter on famous huntsmen – both professional and amateur, again well illustrated with photographs of them.
The section devoted to foxhunting with Foxford brings back many memories of the articles he wrote under that name for Horse and Hound in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The section is both large and entertaining but, from my point of view, perhaps the best chapter in the book is the one about the political problems all hunting has gone through, even though it is written from the point of view of a foxhunter. This is where the journalistic writing of the author is seen very clearly. He covers the anti-hunting movement in general and the different attempts to get hunting banned are covered in chronological order, from the Prohibition of Hunting and Coursing Bill of 1948 through to the Hunting Act 2004.
I, like many others, took part in many of the marches and demonstrations in defense of hunting, each of which is also described and assessed and I am pleased to have a well written record of the efforts made by all hunting folk to protect their sport. The work and the politics of the Countryside Alliance and its metamorphosis from the British Field Sports Association is also well covered.
The book has a foreword by Alastair Jackson, Director of the Masters of Foxhounds Association and a useful appendix which embraces locations of British and Irish Foxhound packs; locations of US, Canadian and Australian Foxhound packs; a glossary of foxhunting terms; a bibliography and an index.
I am not a foxhunter, but found the book well illustrated and very interesting and, because of the authors skill and the relevance of his writing to all types of hunting, am pleased to give the book a prominent place in my bookshelves.
Reviewed by:
David Hindle