For my birthday a very civilised friend of mine gave me a slim volume,
easily fitted nto a jacket pocket. But this was no volume of fashionable verse. It was entitled "On Hunting" by one Roger Scruton. And was it well-chosen?Scruton is a very successful intellectual from the lower classes
of England. His dad, in Manchester, leaving school at fourteen worked at collecting horse dung from the streets until, in WWII, he escaped by joining the RAF, later becoming an indignant, socialist school-teacher. Young
Scruton, obviously provided with a top-quality brain, infuriated his dad by winning scholarships, for instance to Cambridge, and reaching the giddy heights of Professor (of Philosophy)and of a Times Newspaper Columnist. But these
distinctions were not sufficient for him.
He described his life, rather briefly, as follows: "My life divides into three parts. In the first I was wretched; in the second ill at ease; in the third hunting." Golly!
Omitting a chapter of miseries, it transpires that he was riding (very amateurishly) a small (fourteen hand) pony called, accurately, Dumbo, when he was surrounded by the mounted followers of a foxhunt. Dumbo was instantly
transformed into a glittering front runner, paying no attention to his rider , and surging to a most ill-advised position for pony and rider in front of the Hunt Master, who was naturally decked in all his pink (and far from punk)
splendour, and riding a most aristocratic animal, though the Master himself was merely an ordinary farmer.
Scruton's impudent asociation with the Hunt was (perhaps you are as surprised as I was) accepted and encouraged,
and soon, with a fortunate financial windfall and a gift of an ancient Hunt uniform he was in a position to fall, at a successive four hunt jumps, off a horse which might not have been ideal for such an innocent rider to attempt to
control.
Undiscouraged by these difficulties Scruton soon became, not only a competent rider, but an apologist for hunting. Why? And as I attempt to explain, you should, perhaps, bear in mind that your columnist has had the
equally fortunate experiences of hunting the fox in New York State, in England, and marvellously in Wales.
But first a little language. The verb "to hunt" in English English means to hunt the fox on horseback behind a
pack of foxhounds, while on the Western side of the Atlantic it means to go shooting any species of wild animal, commonly the deer. And although the ostensible aim of the English Huntsman is to kill a fox this is rather seldom
achieved, in my experience never.
However, galloping across country behind a pack of noisy hounds, over small walls, hedges and gates, together with half a hundred other excited riders and even more strongly excited horses, is
enough stimulation for most people, especially when rain falls, everything gets slippery, and the chance of falling off is much increased.
So there is a real chance of injury, of death or, even worse, of spinal damage which
may leave you paralysed. Yet, for this intellectual, this professor from the lower classes, hunting changed his life greatly for the better. Why? Scruton tries to tell us, with some success.
Among the reasons are the challenge of
riding over jumps, of controlling his animal in a herd, of learning the good manners of riding, of observing the skills of the hounds and the Huntsman, and, as a bonus, observing the other wild animals of the countryside. Not
to mention the joy of being a member of a fiercely fanatical tribe.
In Barbados we have no foxes and no fences. Fox-hunting is out. But just offshore we have an environment as savage as any in Africa, as stimulating as leaping a
five-bar gate. Hunting fish with spear or camera is a genuine challenge with real risks needing real skills. And, best of all, there's no need to buy a hungry horse.
