Shooting Times & Country Magazine
Unreality television
Fieldsportsmen are a convenient scapegoat upon whom to blame the ills of the countryside but we know the truth, says John Humphreys
In an absent-minded moment I switched on the telly to see how, and indeed if, the world outside the village still wagged, only to receive two nasty jolts in quick succession. First, it was badgers and a report accompanied by horrifying film of badger-baiting and a commentary that implied quite clearly that ‘bloodsportsmen’ were behind the whole thing and that it was due only to the criminal resistance of the hunting fraternity that badger digging had not been stopped years ago. The illegality of the practice received but passing mention.
My blood pressure had barely subsided below danger level when there we were again in a news item about otters. The reason for their decline — yes, you’ve guessed it — those bloodsportsmen again with more horrific film of otterhounds dismembering an otter, the word ‘bloodsportsmen’ being spat out with a curl of the lip and snarl that was at once contemptuous and condemnatory. Again, there was a mumbled aside that otterhunting had been banned for six years.
Persecution complex
I was rapidly developing a persecution complex, only slightly relieved by a programme later in the evening, also about otters, in which a keen lady spent her days collecting otter droppings. She emitted shrill squeaks of delight when she found an especially choice one, all this to the particularly soppy voice-over commentary by a bit-part actress.
Speaking as a, by TV producer standards, rabid bloodsportsman, I thought I heard an otter back in 1959 and I once caught definite sight of a badger trundling along a hedge one evening. Paul Dixey is to be heartily congratulated for his wringing out of the BBC a recant for its unbalanced report on badger digging, but it is still possible for pink-shirted producers to stick technically to the facts but by implication, innuendo and selection of archive film, score all the debating points they like. Fieldsportsmen – from tiddler-snatching lads, salmon anglers, wildfowlers, pigeon decoyers and ferreters to falconers and hunting men – are a convenient, collective Aunt Sally upon whom to blame the ills of the countryside. Pollution, disturbance by urban weekenders, vandals, drainage and natural population fluctuations are more major reasons for decline, while to link the tiny minority of psychopathic lunatics to the great body of fieldsportsmen is as logical as blaming macramé workers for the fall of the pound.
Ossuary
The house is beginning to resemble an ossuary: nervous guests cannot for long stand the uncertainty, once they become aware that from any one of a score of unexpected niches a hideous, grinning skull is likely to be glaring down on them. A routine
visit to the pantry or the toilet becomes an expedition fraught with terrors for the faint-hearted. Young Peter Humphreys has started a skull collection, an enthusiasm fostered by a thoughtless birthday present from a malicious relative.
It was a book entitled simply Skulls — How to Collect and Identify Animal and Bird Skulls, written by 14-yearold schoolboy Richard Steel with a foreword by David Bellamy, published in 1980 as a Piccolo Book and costing a whole pound. It won The Times’ Information Book Award, and it is easy to see why. Written with simple enthusiasm and a down-to-earth, boy-to-boy approach, it exudes an unsqueamish, pragmatic enjoyment of the subject. The reader is urged to scavenge beaches, the bans of rivers and the sides of roads in order to add to his ghoulish collection. Too much meat left on the head? Not to worry; leave it out for the maggots to pick it clean and you may recycle your army of little helpers later as bait for fishing. The author once cycled 1,400 miles in six months in his macabre hunt for heads. As for the preparation of the trophy, he writes, “I have been cutting up various bodies in all sorts of foul stages of decay for eight years now, and have had no hygiene problems at all.” Lovely, but he does make all the right points about rubber gloves and a thorough and careful scrubbing-up after operations.
I have no doubt that Richard’s parents have emigrated, were extremely tolerant or totally devoid of a sense of smell. Peter’s collection made a good start with mink, greylag, pinkfoot and carrion crow; all had been dead for some time so were fairly odourless. Then he was stuck for a bit until he bethought him of the trapping line. In vain did I distract his attention and try to hurry past the place, for he insisted we stop and add stoat and weasel to the list. He whipped out a fearsome dirk, removed the two heads in various stages of decomposition, and took them home. The memsahib and I were out for the evening, but on returning home were greeted at the
“Mustelids make good subjects, and I have already caught Peter gazing thoughtfully at poor old Rosy, our senior ferret”
front door by a smell to which no poor words of mine can do justice.
We have all heard of those famous smells, notorious pongs that float down history with their unbelievable awfulness; the Black Hole of Calcutta, a dead whale, excited skunks, London during the plague, the charnel house at Alexandria and other notable stenches. Take my word for it, they all pale into insignificance and become mere minor whiffs when compared to the aroma of a putrid stoat and rotten weasel boiling in the scrambled eggs saucepan in the kitchen. Foetid, metallic and rank it wafted through the house, choking the lungs, permeating the furniture and curtains, still identifiable days later. Visitors came no further than the doorstep, but sniffed twice; then it caught them full on the chest and they made an excuse and left. No scrambled eggs for me for a while.
Family party
Eventually, however, two more bleached mustelids joined the mink, each skull a lesser replica of the next, like a little family party marching along the mantelpiece or three plaster flying duck that people nail to the wall.
I have outlawed all further boiling operations to the camping stove in the shed but am beginning to worry about what the boy will bring home next. Mustelids make good subjects, and I have already caught him gazing thoughtfully at poor old Rosy, our senior ferret. If ever I meet master Richard Steel he will have much for which to answer.
Peter’s real wish is to get a badger and an otter to complete the set. No hope of that, unless a TV producer can put me on to some of those bloodsports chaps.
This article was first published in the 23 May 1985 issue of Shooting Times.