Hunting memoirs Enjoy
In an extract from his new book of hunting memoirs, True To The Line, Adrian Dangar describes his first months as master and huntsman of the Spooners and West Dartmoor, aged 24
an exclusive extract from MFH Adrian Dangar’s new book
AFTER a September morning with the Beaufort from Chavenage, Ian Farquhar invited me to his home at Happylands for breakfast; over bacon and eggs told me that it was now high time I took on a pack of hounds myself — and as it happened he knew just the place.
Ten days later I found myself riding behind the Spooners and West Dartmoor from Mary Tavy as they drew up a steep gorsestrewn valley that was full of foxes. The day ended at Tavy Cleave, a plunging ravine scattered with granite boulders the size of cars, which must surely qualify as the roughest country hunted from the back of a horse anywhere in Britain. The followers were friendly, the hounds accurate and the country wilder and more beautiful than anywhere I had ever hunted before. Shortly after my visit a letter arrived from the secretary of the Spooners hunt informing me that I had been appointed to join Tim Millar in the mastership from 1 May 1987, with full responsibility for hounds and kennels. I would never have felt confident enough to look after a pack of hounds — in fact two packs, for my charges that first season included the Devon & Cornwall minkhounds — singlehandedly had it not been for
Nat Thornton at Stowe; under his tutelage I had learnt how to manage hounds on and off the hunting field and skin a sheep or calf in two minutes flat.
Shortly before my arrival on Dartmoor the late Frank Toye, a huge, kind man who worked for Devon County Council, kept racing-pigeons and loved following hounds by car, had a bit of an altercation with a past master in the lavatory after a particularly heated committee meeting. The press were quick to add lustre to the story by describing the Spooners as one of Prince Charles’ favourite hunts; this was hardly accurate
reporting, however, HRH’s Duchy of Cornwall was our biggest landowner by some way and, I was soon to discover, also the supplier of the kennel’s water. This cost the hunt a shilling a year in rent and was taken from a moorland leat via an inch-wide hole bored centuries earlier through solid granite. The sparkling trickle of life-giving water sustained hounds, horses and myself for three years without ever once freezing over, although the tiny and distant hole became so frequently clogged with bracken during dry, windy days of high summer that I eventually purchased a trials bike for the daily unblock.
My new home sat with its back to the very edge of Dartmoor, but faced inland across a patchwork of small, green fields divided by ragged Devon banks and wooded hollows of beech, holly, oak and thorn. I discovered a jackdaw’s nest in the kitchen range on my first evening, and piles of pornographic magazines left behind by the previous occupant, who was clearly not thrilled to be leaving paradise. Their place was taken by a red coat the former Meynell master and close family friend Dermot Kelly had given me on learning of my new appointment. The coat fitted me like a glove and lasted for many long seasons.
MARVELLOUS HOUNDS
WALKING hounds out that first morning down a quiet, high-banked grassy lane was the most sublime of experiences;
Tim Millar, Mike Doidge and I stood beneath the ancient church at Sampford Spiney where the four granite pinnacles have been dappled grey-green by centuries of creeping lichen, and watched hounds feathering about the close-cropped green. I marvelled then, as I still do, how quickly and comprehensively a pack of hounds place their trust and obedience with a new master in a manner that is humbling and gratifying in equal measure. Those who have never worked with hounds often find it astonishing that their keepers are able to distinguish one from another, although I have always been able to remember hounds and dogs much better than people. Recognising hounds is not just a matter of colour and conformation; it is also to do with the mannerisms, gait and demeanour that combine to make up an individual hound.
As I cast my eye over my new pack I could pick out the handsome quartet of Hampshire, Hazard, Hector and Herdsman 86, quality tan-and-blue mottle dogs that could have won a twocouple prize in the show ring; Major 83 with his dark, flecked neck, coy Dormouse 85, Crafty 83 dark as night and the lemon-andwhite sisters, Gingham, Gorgeous and Gracious 84. Siblings Demon and Darling 83 were there too; Berkeley-bred, they were two of the finest hounds it has ever been my privilege to hunt. Darling was pure white save for a lemon patch over her right ear, whilst her striking tricolour brother commanded attention, even when just walking out. Demon went off his feet on the way back from cubhunting one morning, and fearing the worst, we fastened him up in a farmer’s stable for collection later. When I got back to the kennels Demon was waiting there having torn down the door and beaten us home across the moor. Equally prominent was Carpenter 82, an enormous lemon-and-white dog severely over at the knee, but possessed of such a fine nose that he could own the line of a fox for hours after it had gone. Many a fine hunt was to get underway with Carpenter’s deep booming voice ringing out across the moor as he single-handedly unravelled an overnight drag.
PUTTING POINTING INTO THE SHADE
DESPITE having attained the ambition of my dreams I still drove back to Gloucestershire on 2 May to ride Singing The Blues and Hung Dial in the Berkeley Hunt point-to-point at Stone. The latter horse ran a good race to be third in division two of the maiden, beaten by Julian Smyth-Osborne and Alan Hill.
Driving back past Sourton Tors with the western fringe of the moor glowing in evening light felt like coming home, and I could hardly wait to see the hounds and check that they had been well looked after in my absence. They were fine of course, but I realised as I looked into the crowd of waving sterns and deep, trusting eyes that disappearing off to ride in pointto-point races was not really something they approved of.
So I stopped, and never rode in a race again.
‘HAPPY AS A SANDBOY’
MOUNTED hound exercise was in full swing by the start of July and with the help of local plasterer Graham Goddard, Mike Doidge and his daughter, Tracy, I was able to take hounds amongst sheep morning after morning after morning, until I felt confident enough to slip into Merrivale Newtake soon after daybreak and
‘Recognising hounds is not just a matter of colour and conformation; it is also to do with the mannerisms, gait and demeanour that make up an individual’
ADRIAN DANGAR
encourage hounds to draw where I knew they would find a fox. They caught one too; a cloud of steam rose from the rocks where Farmer 84 had nailed his quarry after rattling around the grey slopes of Great Mis Tor for 20 heavenly minutes. I had to dig out the next fox myself after hounds had run it to ground in a small hole at the edge of Eggworthy Wood at the end of our first official morning’s hunting.
I waited whilst Mike rode half an hour home for my black and tan terrier Spooner, spade and gun, then left me happy as a sandboy to complete my task surrounded by green bracken, clear blue skies and a pack of hounds eager for their reward.
The opening meet is a significant event for every hunt, a time of anticipation, excitement and a sense of achievement in having reached an important milestone of the hunting year. No huntsman will ever forget his first. I remember a busy morning all about Pork Hill in warm October sunshine, and much later a fox from Langstone Bog heading out across the open moor. Hounds were still running him 90 minutes later, although I had by then traded my weary second horse for Sue Sprott’s rangy thoroughbred, Just A Kinsman. Our fox turned back from the Princetown road in the cool of late afternoon with the pack flying so fast in his wake that I had to get after Sue’s valiant blood horse to stay in touch.
When hounds run like that across clean ground on a burning scent it is inevitable that the youngest will pull to the front, and as I rounded the shoulder of Staple Tor I could see the pack well strung-out with three or four first-season hounds clear of the rest and travelling like racing greyhounds over the rocky sward. Bumbling along in front of them was a bunch of scraggy moorland sheep going as fast as their spindly black legs could carry them.
Six months earlier I had opened a letter of welcome from Captain Mike Howard MC, who had enjoyed a long and successful mastership of the Spooners. He offered help where it was needed, and warned me to be wary of sheep. “Your critics — and all masters have them”, he wrote, “will be looking for you to chase the local scotch sheep, and they can be buggers”. His words were ringing in my ears as, powerless to intervene, I watched the young hounds draw rapidly closer to the fleeing sheep, which at the very last moment peeled off down the hill to reveal the beaten fox that had been running amongst them. Minutes later I was picking my way off Staple Tor surrounded by happy hounds with his mask swinging from my saddle. I can only imagine what the foot followers watching from Merrivale quarry far below must have been thinking as the drama unfolded, but my appearance amongst them was greeted only by broad smiles and a whiskey bottle proffered in the gloaming.
It felt as though all my Christmases had come at once that year, for the season was open, foxes came readily to hand — including a memorable two brace caught above ground from Postbridge — and the dreaded fog had been largely forgiving.
My first glance on a hunting morning was always towards the high ground of Pewtor, for I knew that it could spell disaster if its rocky summit was shrouded in mist. Occasionally the fog came down so suddenly out hunting that there was nothing for it but to pack up and go home, with or without hounds, which unfailingly made their way home to the kennels. Every time I went up to the yard I would find a few more hounds curled up asleep in the hay barn; they were nearly always all back by 10pm, and no hound ever came to mishap in this way.