Blencathra steeped in history
Manchester city centre is not the usual venue for the start of a hunting day but that somehow added to the pleasure as I stole away from my hotel in the still dark October morning. two days of the conservative Party conference is enough for any sane countryman, so it was with some relief that I tapped a cumbrian postcode into the satnav and headed into the hills.
Less than two hours later it directed me off the old a6 along a single-track road signposted to Longsleddale. as the valley grew narrower I looked to the left and, as I had been told I would, saw a gathering of pickups and fourwheel-drive vehicles lined up in the flat riverside field below a typical stone cumbrian farm. here were the Ullswater Foxhounds, drawn from the inhabitants of the valleys around, gathering to hunt the fells as generations of their forefathers had before them.
“Little John” Weller, the Ullswater huntsman (little only in comparison to his predecessor, “Long John” harrison) greeted me with the traditional cumbrian greeting of “now then” and, after a brief chat and a nod from piratical Master tom O’malley, he unboxed hounds from their trailer and headed up through the green in-bye fields and out onto the open fell. the locals would tell you that it was not a great day. hounds worked hard but struggled to own the line as the sun shone and temperatures rose unseasonably high. For a visitor who can manage just a few days a year on the fells, however, it was close to heaven. When I finally had to tear myself away for a late afternoon meeting we had travelled many crooked miles and were far up the dale with the beck and single-track road far below in the narrow valley bottom. It is a view that might nag at the back of your memory if you did not know that the lane is the one travelled by Postman Pat at the start of every episode of the children’s programme.
the next morning at first light, Barry todhunter, huntsman of the Blencathra, brought his hounds to picture perfect st John’s in the Vale, just to the south of the mountain from which his pack takes its name. the early start was a response to the continuing warm weather and despite that, and the bracken that still grew high on parts of the twin hills of Low rigg and high rigg, the Blencathra’s famous hounds drew tirelessly, found their line and hunted it to a successful conclusion. It is always a privilege to be hunting on the fells and even more so to be in the company of Michael thompson, who has quietly but firmly guided the hunt through the extraordinary events of the past 15 years. thompson
Inspired by the dominating landscape of Cumbria’s high fells, Tim Bonner revels in a few days’ hunting with old friends. Photographs Phil Witcomb
joined the Blencathra mastership in 2002 and was in sole charge from 2005 until 2014, when he was joined by the genial Irishman Larry Slattery. It is his quiet determination and professionalism that has steered the Blencathra through the toughest of tests posed by the Hunting Act to the relatively calm water in which it now resides. Thompson is, unusually for the role, not a farmer but had a successful career with a major local engineering firm. All the skills learned in business and the boardroom are now deployed in managing the most famous hunt in the fells.
The Blencathra is synonymous with fellhunting and with such renown comes attention, some welcome, some not. It was in the little village of Caldbeck in the Blencathra country that one of the most inexplicable and revolting “protests” in animal-rights history took place. Anti-hunt activists, including a man called Mike Huskisson, who was subsequently employed by the League Against Cruel Sports, planned to dig up the body of legendary huntsman John Peel. Thankfully, they were thwarted by a hard frost and had to settle for smashing the headstone and desecrating his grave. Todhunter has also suffered the attentions of hunt saboteurs and “covert surveillance” by anti-hunting organisations unsuccessfully trying to collect evidence. On the plus side, there are few people in the world of hunting, from the late Ronnie Wallace to the Prince of Wales, who have not made the pilgrimage to the Blencathra’s modest kennels under the mountain that they take their name from, and few places the Blencathra huntsman and hounds have not been invited.
Perhaps my favourite moment with Todhunter outside the hunting field was at the Peterborough Hound Show, to which he brings the Blencathra hounds every year “to show them buggers what a proper hound looks like”, as he puts it. That year the wonderful Kate Hoey MP was president of the show and by lunchtime it was clear that the succession of dignitaries allocated to the president’s box were starting to weary her. “Can’t we have Barry?” she asked me and I replied I thought that it was probably not the done thing to have hunt staff in uniform in the president’s box. She replied, as I suspected she would, with a twinkle in her eyes, “Well, that’s all the more reason to get him then”, and so the huntsman of the Blencathra in red coat and hill boots, with his sideburns neatly brushed, spent most of the afternoon in the literal box seat with the president of the Peterborough Royal Foxhound Show while the great and good of hunting looked on.
Fell-hunting is very special in many ways. Of course, there is that huge, dominating landscape that, especially for those of us who do not live in it, is often a showstopper in itself. Then there is the essential purity of the hunting, born of the need of sheep farmers to keep the fox population in check and almost unchanged in a couple of hundred years. A huntsman, a pack of hounds and his quarry, whether the real thing or an artificial alternative. There is the very special breed of hound created for this place and this role. The fell hound is light, fast and most of all independent in thought and action. At check, they cannot wait around to be told where to cast
because the huntsman is more often than not on the next mountain so must think and decide for themselves, which they do with absolute commitment. Their stamina, athleticism and longevity is almost unbelievable. Skylark, a Blencathra bitch from a famous litter, retired a couple of years ago to the farm she was walked on and summered at every year in her 11th season. She had hunted three days a week throughout those 10-and-a-bit seasons, clocking up an incalculable mileage. Like Skylark, no fell hound belongs simply to the huntsman or the Masters. First and foremost they belong to the family that walked them. At the puppy show they will be shown by their walkers and if they go on to win a prize at a hound show it is the walker, not the Master, who will collect the cup. This leads to fierce competition in the hunting field as supporters are keen to promote the ability of “their” hounds. Which other hunts could you go to and find that the majority of supporters can recognise and name every hound in the pack?
This brings me to perhaps the single most important element that makes the fell packs so special: the people. The Masters, often carrying out a role akin to herding cats, trying to keep control of their wayward tribes; the followers, the younger and fitter up high on the fells while the less mobile drive the narrow roads with binoculars and CB radios; and, of course, the huntsmen, heroes of the fells, as unstoppable as their hounds. Even the spoken word changes out on the fells with fell-hunting folk. The further from the trappings of the modern world you climb the more the locals seem to slip back into their native dialect, nearly a language in its own right and impenetrable to foreign ears.
I lay no claims to much expertise in hunting but the romantic in me sees something of the character of their hunts in many of them. John Weller, perhaps not as boisterous as
Todhunter, even more than his fellow fell huntsmen, walks in the footsteps of legends
many who follow his Ullswater pack but no less steely and determined. Paul Whitehead who quietly, almost silently, hunts the stunning, unheralded Lunesdale country with a beautiful pack of hounds. Coniston Master and huntsman Michael Nicholson, from a famous hunting family, as wild as a hawk and twice as much fun. Edward Liddle, the young huntsman of the Lal’ Melbreak, always thought of as the little brother of their neighbours but determined that it is actually their hounds that show the best sport. And then there is Barry Todhunter, huntsman of the Blencathra since 1988 and and whipper-in to his predecessor Johnny Richardson for 15 seasons before that. Taking on the job of Blencathra huntsman is no passing whim as there have been just seven holders of the post in the 190 years since it was founded in 1826. Add the fact that on the death of the legendary John Peel the best of his hounds were added to the Blencathra pack and it is clear that Todhunter, even more than his fellow fell huntsmen, walks in the footsteps of legends.
The fell packs are governed, as if governing such characters is a remote possibility, by the Central Committee of Fell Packs, which has seven members now that the North Lonsdale has served a three- or four-decade apprenticeship and been welcomed fully into the fold. When I first had dealings with the central committee it was chaired by Edmund Porter, Master and formerly huntsman of the Eskdale and Ennerdale. Porter sits at the top table of 20th-century fell huntsmen, which puts him in extraordinary company; I will always regret never having seen him hunt his fox-killing pack.