Rydal Hound Show
Melvyn Bragg writes for TMV in support of hunting. He is also patron of the Hound Trailing Association, and plans to visit Rydal Hound Show 2009
Previously published in TMV (August 2008)
Lord Melvyn Bragg
In Cumbria hunting is part of the county and of the town and of the villages and of the talk and of the songs. It is in its history and in its bones.
I was brought up in hunting country. In Wigton, near enough to the Back of Skiddaw.
Wigton in the 1940’s was full of horses especially at the time of the great horse sales. The Hunt would set-off from St Mary’s Church on Boxing Day. We would try to keep up with it on our bikes and only gave up when they cut across fields to woods which defeated us. And sometimes - to tell the truth- we would turn back out of boredom because every fox in the Wigton area seemed to have taken a holiday that morning.
John Peel became the signature tune of one of our great county regiments. I was reminded of that when I read George MacDonald Fraser’s book on his service in Burma during World War II. The idea of John Peel being sang and whistled by Cumbrian infantry men as they drove the great Japanese army back on its tracks was inspiring.
And it was a matter of great pride that the words to John Peel were written by a Wigton Man, John Woodcock Graves. Now there’s a writer of fame! And for the last 37 years I’ve lived within half a mile of Ruthwaite, John Peel’s base and almost as an afterthought his home. He was most at home out hunting on the Fells.
In this area, hunting was always part of a bigger life. For all the criticism against it now it was an activity which brought sport, delight, literature and success in battle together. We learnt at school and in the books we read that the British cavalry were hardened in the hunts at home. We read Surtees with pleasure and rollicked with him over the countryside. We read memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon with a sort of envy for such a life so well-written by one of the great First World War poets.
A touch of envy was perhaps part of it. The brillia scarlet men, the handsome black-jacketed women and girls high on their horses. Envy and admiration for their style and pluck.
The Blencathra Fell Hounds above Birk Rigg
I followed a few hunts on foot but never rode a horse. I had no wish to hunt but when I went walking around the Northern Fells and saw a few of the tired members from the local pack trailing home at twilight I was always pleased at the sight, pleased that the tradition went on, pleased that history continued through the present. I rarely thought about the fox. If I did it would be in snatches from the many songs and ballads in which, invariably, Fox was praised and admired – a worthy opponent as often missed as caught, and when caught dispatched more humanely and quickly than any other method on offer. I agree with my friend the great Sir David Attenborough when he said: "I can’t see that the fox would mind which way it is killed."
Yet if we are now talking about humane killing - which is part of the anti-fox hunting argument - then there is no doubt at all that poisoning, trapping, shooting are guaranteed to protract pain way beyond any of that suffered in a death at the end of the hunt.
Yet this was one of the many issues when, with others, I stood up in Parliament to try to stop what seemed to me an unnecessary attack on the liberties of people of this country.
Fox Hunting does not harm any human beings, foxes themselves hunt and have over centuries been hunted by other animals as well as by the human animal.
History matters if a country is to keep its identity. While I can understand the ban on say - bear-bating, foxhunting is in a different category with the odds wide-open. Besides, foxes however highly-appreciated by huntsmen are vermin and killers. They need to be culled. Hunting was a clean way to do it and provided a country sport much valued.
I do not doubt the sincerity of those who are against hunting. I do however suggest that they think that foxes are more Disney than Destructive. I have also a sad fear that some of those opposed to it might have been opposed not on humanitarian grounds, but on grounds of Class. They saw foxhunting as the pursuit of the Privileged and saw it as an easy and short-term popular target. Maybe I’m wrong. But if so it is more than unfortunate, it is worrying.
In a democracy in which we accept majority government even on the slimmest of victories and do so in a way which is very, very rare on the planet, we must also accept the rights of minorities. The Act to end hunting defied all that to the detriment of the richness of this country. Minorities, independent minds, radicals, eccentrics, passionate and dedicated small groups, in their various ways make this the remarkable country it is. One sad consequence of the hunting business was that it raised the question, is it still the same country today?
But most of all in my view, those who opposed the Act were plain wrong about hunting society, especially here in Cumbria.
Here it has always been something which belonged to people who could come from any walk of life. Hill farmers would give a home to fell hounds and feed them up. Landowners would let the hunt travel across the countries. People in pubs would roll the day’s hunting into the day’s gossip, and especially among the foot packs, hunting was widely and actively followed.
Its strength is proved by the fact that law-abiding people refuse to give up, its resilience stems from the fact that the people engaged in it often know a lot about the countryside and have a care for the non-human life that lives there, and understand what cities have appeared to have forgotten. That you have to kill to survive even today. Fish. Beef. Lamb.Chicken. Duck – we kill to survive. And the fox is a killer. There is a reality in the countryside that the city shuts its eyes to, digs its head in a barrel of unthought-through arguments and imagines that the world will become a better place through wishful thinking.
So the Rydal Show is not only a great day for Fell hounds, and for harriers, beagles and sheep dogs, but also for something nourished and cherished in these parts which obstinately and admirably refuses to die: the Hunt.
And they will still sing John Peel in some pubs tonight.
Melvyn Bragg