Book Reviews
The Keen Foxhunter's Miscellany
by Peter Holt
ISBN 978-1-84689-065-9
Published by Quiller | £16.95
This book is recommended for all hunting folk (not just foxhunters) and has been produced along similar lines to the well-known Schotts Miscellany series. It will, like Schotts, doubtlessly become very useful as a stocking-filler for Christmas but, at the same time, I have to say it is a very entertaining read and has been very well researched.
Essentially, it is a book for the bedside, being a compendium of more than three hundred and fifty stories, anecdotes, articles, snippets or whatever you might like to call them. Most importantly for a bedside book, it is compact and easy to handle - not too heavy in weight, so that it can be read comfortably in bed! It is also easy to dip into because each of the contents are interesting and relatively short.
Peter Holt is a former Fleet Street gossip columnist who married a Joint Master of the South Shropshire Foxhounds. He has previously written the already very successful The Keen Shots Miscellany (Quiller), as well as other books like In Clive's Footsteps, a travelogue on the trail of his ancestor Lord Clive of India, and other books not related to field sports.
What I like about this book is the way it covers many aspects of foxhunting, including quotes of famous people, like that of the late Duke of Beaufort who said: There is little doubt that people will do things when they are hunting that they would never consider in cold blood. It is almost as if they have a shot of some sort of drug that dulls there normal fears – for who would think of jumping an iron gate for the fun of it except perhaps the very young , or may I be permitted to say, the foolhardy?
Whatever your taste, you will find something amusing, interesting, informative and entertaining. I am not a horseman and have always hunted on my flat feet, but the more I thought about Roger Scruton's description of the hunter, the more I realised how accurate this must be. He said: Only one kind of horse gets the most out of being a horse and that is the hunter. Alone among domesticated animals the hunter has the chance to run with the herd – fit, well fed and carefree – over country cleared of his natural predators. No equine joy matches that of running side by side with other horses, immersed in the great tide of species and excited by the baying of hounds.
I enjoyed the book immensely and was sorry to finish reading it.
Reviewed by:
David Hindle