THE FIELD FROM THE ARCHIVES

Christmas hunting, taken from The Field, 6 December 1928

The approach of the festive season, with all its pleasures and somewhat onerous obligations, seems to take the majority of us by surprise and, in this respect, hunting people are quite the same as others. Those first six weeks of the hunting season – from 1 November to the school holidays – have been passed calmly and pleasantly. The weather has been, as often as not, mild and lovely, and there has been nothing to interfere with the pursuit of the chief business of life in the way of family obligations and duties, which the end of December will bring us, or of social ones, such as those that will crowd upon us in January when the Hunt Ball season sets in.

And then, with the shortening days, comes the recollection that the boys and girls will be home from school in a short time; that their ponies and horses must be looked to and got ready; the young riders’ kits be prepared; and in all probability it will be found that most of them will have grown out of everything they possess in the way of hunting attire.

But somehow or other all get clothed and mounted, and forth they ride to the nearest meet with their elders, who probably inwardly bid farewell to any peace of mind out hunting as long as the holidays last. Meanwhile, those who do not possess young families become aware of the imminence of 25 December by the invasion of little scrambling, pattering ponies, ridden by small sportsmen. It is wonderful how some pale, weak-looking little boys take quite easily and happily to hunting again on the first day of the Christmas holidays – boys who seem to have no fears, and who show efficiency in horsemanship from the very first.

This kind of young rider, whether boy or girl, is on the whole less of an anxiety than the timid and incapable kind. Even should the valorous child leave the groom or other steady person in whose charge he or she may have been placed, and be seen mingling with grown-up riders, urging his or her pony over such of the fences as it can be induced to face – like young Lob and Albert Arthur Honeybrook in Surtees’ novel, when they broke away from ‘the Jug’s’ guardianship and gallantly followed Mr Jovey Jessop’s hounds on a line of their own.

While the rather wild and dangerous methods of riding displayed by some of the hobbledehoys and ‘flappers’ who form part of the field in the Christmas holidays may cause some inconvenience, and also alarm, to older and regular members, I think it is a mistake for those responsible for young people to order them to keep in the background. Mount them as well as possible, give them definite instructions about not cutting in at fences, shoving rudely at gateways, and so on, and they will not do much harm; but by all means allow and even encourage them to have a go if they will.

Most adults are only too glad to see the young ones enjoying themselves, for, after all, which of us is not reminded by the sight of our own young days when we were first mounted on a horse that would gallop and jump and, instead of being tamely conducted through the gates, were free to follow the flying pack?

The glorious intoxication of it all. The agony when hounds threw up; the wild joy when they hit off the line again, and once more one galloped to the tune of their maddening music. That first fine careless rapture which once was ours. I think to witness the possession of it by our own and other people’s sons and daughters makes us smile with pleasure.

On the whole, there seems to be a happy-go-lucky feeling out hunting at Christmas time. For one thing, the days are so short that you need not save your horse for an afternoon run, or the chance of one, and one is in a mood to tolerate, and even welcome, the presence of an unwanted number of foot people ‘home for the holidays’. Their great day is, of course, Boxing Day, when the regular field resign themselves to having foxes headed in all directions, if, indeed, any are forthcoming, for earthstoppers are apt to forego their duties in favour of merrymaking on Christmas night.

How familiar is the modern Boxing Day meet. A mile or so of cars, ditto bicycles – a solid cordon of humanity eight or 10 deep surrounding the pack, while the hunt servants sit on their horses trying in a well-bred manner to look as though their only thought was to keep their precious charges from being engulfed by the crowd, and as though they were quite unconscious that sundry riders are trying to push their horses through the crowd to present the staff with the customary seasonable tips.

Then the long, strange-looking procession sets forth to the first covert, and the huntsman is lucky if he can find a fox, show something of a ringing hunt, and conclude with a spectacular kill in the eyes of as many of the foot people as possible. This consummation is usually brought about with much help from the latter, who have greeted every appearance of the animal with acclaiming yells, as though he were Royalty! Motorists appear to have been given, or to have taken, leave for the day to follow, and many picnic parties are to be seen, composed for the most part of town dwellers to whom foxhunting is a novel and curious pastime.

The ordinary hunting folk may find that they have to make some sacrifices during the holidays, and may sometimes wish for their conclusion. Yet when they really are over, things may perhaps at first seem a little dull and flat, and the reflection may come that Christmas really brought a welcome influx of new and young life to the field, which was not without its pleasures. Perhaps, above all, the childless ones have felt some interest in seeing other people’s children carrying on the old traditions and preparing to keep hunting going for another generation at least.

“THERE SEEMS TO BE A HAPPYGO-LUCKY FEELING OUT HUNTING AT CHRISTMAS”