To London – on horseback

Day 1

It was just after dawn and the hounds at Motcombe were barking. So was Colonel Corbin, secretary of the South and West Wilts hunt. “Good grief! The Guardian. Are you sure you want to do this?” Frankly, no.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time: to join the hunt’s four-day ride from Dorset to London for Sunday’s Countryside Alliance (or, as the hunt prefers, Liberty and Livelihood) march. Now, having just met my horse, Solo (vast, brooding and well over 17 hands high), I’m getting cold feet. Though feet may not be the problem.

Andrew German, the professional huntsman with the South and West Wilts, announces we will be riding 150 miles. Solo looks worried at this news, though because of my considerable girth there will be two change horses, Diamond and Goose, waiting for me along the way. If I make it that far, of course. German, in the kitchen of his house which adjoins the kennels at Motcombe, explains why he is riding to London: “So I can keep my job and my home, and to save the 82 foxhounds, who will be no more if hunting is banned. You would only need a third of them for a drag hunt.”

The march may be tagged liberty and livelihood, but for many of Sunday’s marchers it is about hounds. The South and West Wilts has one of the oldest packs in the country, dating from 1690. The bloodlines can be traced back 300 years and the master of the hunt, Andrew Sallis, has the books to prove it. Dog-eared tomes litter his sitting room, filled with lovely names – Sailor, Scandal, Saucebox, Starlight, Siren, to take a few from a random page of the directory for 1875.

The South and West Wilts riders aim to reach Wimbledon Common by Saturday lunchtime, taking in Salisbury, Basingstoke and Leatherhead along the way. More of the hunt wanted to ride, but German preferred to keep his numbers down; more than four, blocking the A30 and A303, would look like civil disobedience. “We’re not at that stage yet,” he said. He refuses to be drawn on whether that stage might come.

German was born in Manchester, a working class lad who fell in love with horses at 14, became a professional showjumper, gave up because he was “no good” (no good, in his case, means coming fifth in a major class at Olympia) and became a professional huntsman instead. For the past 10 years he has moved from job to job following the highly seasonal work; this is his third season with the South and West Wilts. He went up to London recently and says he hated it. “I hope I never have to join the real world,” he said. Hunting is a way of life, the only job he knows; he is determined to protect it.

We leave Motcombe at noon and head for Shaftesbury, followed by a knot of hunt supporters who unfurl banners in the high street of the town as bemused tourists look on. It is the first time horses have been ridden over Shaftesbury’s cobbles for years – the hunt negotiated a special dispensation from the police. Mostly, the passers-by are supportive, though we get some abuse on the outskirts when we cut across a roundabout. German says he expected plenty of support here; he is more concerned about likely reactions on the A3 and as we approach London. Above all, will the eager commuters be willing to slow down for us? We will find out tomorrow morning.

Day 2

Things are getting out of hand. It is 7am at the Pheasant Hotel in Winterslow, near Salisbury, and Ivan Massow has turned up with two horses eager to ride the rest of the route. “This is the last chance for hunting,” he says blearily. “If half a million people turn out on Sunday the government will have to listen.” Massow has an unlikely CV: gay millionaire businessman, former chairman of the ICA, former member of the Tory party, former master of the Cokeham bloodhounds in Sussex. That’s a lot of formers. “I suppose I’m a bit of a loose cannon,” he admits.

We did 25 miles on the first day and reached Winterslow in darkness. Another dawn start and more than 40 miles in the saddle is a miserable prospect, despite the promise of sunshine. We are getting plenty of thumbs up and supportive hoots, though just outside Stockbridge on the A30 we meet our first abuse when a man winds down the window of his white van and shouts “scum” at us.

We head for Sutton Scotney, where we are to change horses at Calcutts, which makes saddles and is Britain’s only manufacturer of hunting horns. The end of hunting, says managing director Ian Compton, would be a terrible blow. Compton, who has run Calcutts since 1960, is angry. “I hope sense will prevail,” he says. “If it doesn’t, I hate to think of the consequences. It would be civil war.” But isn’t hunting cruel? “I don’t think the fox is terrorised,” says Compton, who hunts with the Quantock staghounds. Compton says his firm accounts for 20 jobs and without hunting it could go under. “These are skilled jobs, but if hunting is banned they will have nowhere to go.”

After Sutton Scotney we soon join the A303. This is a dual carriageway with a speed limit of 70mph. We are travelling at 6mph. The police pull us over and point out this disparity. Andrew German, who planned the route, explains it is legal for riders to use any A road. The policeman encourages us to go a little faster. A sustained rising trot gets us up to 10mph.

I am relieved to leave the 303 after about 10 miles and stop for a calming drink in North Waltham. The pub is called the Fox. We grab a pasty from a snack van on the A30. Mr Muttially, who owns the van, insists on giving us free cups of tea and putting coins in the collection bucket, though he seemed to think the ride was raising money for cancer relief. I tell him it is a ride in support of hunting, and ask him whether he is a supporter. “As long as no one gets hurt,” he said.

Day 3

“I don’t agree with hunting, mate,” says a young man at the bar. “How would you feel if you were the fox?” This is not an argument you want to get into when you are trying to order a cheeseburger and chips after a five-hour ride from Farnham to Guildford. I decide to agree that the fox’s lot can be a difficult one. The young woman in the Duke of Wellington served me, but I sensed reluctantly. “Do you support hunting?” “No, but I suppose everyone is entitled to their point of view.” She sounds unconvinced.

As we trot through Guildford, reactions are muted. Some support, some hostility – “Sorry, I just don’t believe in killing,” says a middle-aged man with a beard – and lots of puzzlement. “About the same as the public at large,” says Patrick Drummond, who is doing the ride on polo ponies.

As a rule of thumb, the bigger the vehicle, the more supportive they are likely to be. Lorry drivers almost all give a thumbs-up. White van man is careful not to cut us up. People in four-wheel drives shout: “See you on Sunday.” Drivers of small cars look sour or shout abuse. “You should all be ashamed of yourselves,” yells a man in a Smart car in Guildford. “Boo, boo, boo, boo,” cries an elderly woman in a Corsa who drives past very slowly to make her point. “See you on Sunday,” shouts a man in a Nova. “We’re going to kill you.”

Only one person attempts direct action: a motorcyclist who veers close to the horses and hoots, causing them to shy. He may object to the fact that we have caused a five-mile tailback on the A31. A police car objects too, and is heading towards the source of the jam, siren blaring. We just have time to hide in a covert until the police pass: the hunters hunted.

The ride through Farnham is scary: steep, slippery and in the middle of the rush hour. “Just relax,” says Patrick Drummond. “You won’t run in front of a bus. A horse may be dumb, but it isn’t stupid.” On a stopover, I meet the joint master of the Hampshire hunt, Mark Andreae, a farmer, who has spent the day being pursued by CNN, the US cable television station.

The hunting season proper doesn’t start until next month. This is the “cubbing” season, or as it is more sensitively called “autumn hunting”. Cubbing – the killing of young foxes to control their numbers – is especially reviled by opponents of hunting. Is it humane, I ask Andreae? “The word humane is part of the problem,” he says. “Foxes aren’t human. If we didn’t hunt them, they would be gassed or shot or snared. We found a fallow deer the other day which had lost its back legs in a snare but was still alive. Is that humane?“He has hunted all his life and says he will be demonstrating tomorrow for his grandchildren’s right to hunt. Some of the more optimistic supporters we have met en route have estimated that a million people will flood into London. “It won’t be the countryside march,” says one. “It will be the countryside shuffle.”

Days 4 and 5

Andrew German, who led the four-day South and West Wilts hunt’s ride into London, had injured himself. Not on the ride, but by walking into a taxi door at 5am after a night of pre-march partying. The gash on the crown of his head seemed to confirm his suspicion about London.

The last leg of the journey from Dorset had taken us from Leatherhead to Wimbledon. As we came in on Saturday morning, Ashtead was asleep, Epsom supportive, Morden suspicious. We stopped for lunch at a drive (or, in this case, ride) through McDonald’s, where children patted the horses and the manager fretted about his car park. When the country comes to town things can get messy.

We reached Wimbledon just after 2pm and were greeted by a piper, a small group of Countryside Alliance supporters and several TV crews. One of the greeters was the senior master of foxhounds in the US, who had brought across 200 hunting supporters for the march. “This is the frontline,” he said. “If hunting is banned here we will be next.”

Despite his cut – and lack of sleep – Mr German was at Hyde Park Corner, where the Liberty half of the march began, at 10am yesterday. He wasn’t wearing his hunting regalia; no one was: the organisers evidently felt that massed red jackets would send the wrong signal. It was reckoned to be the biggest protest in London since the Chartists assembled at Kennington in 1848; it was certainly the largest number of people with shooting sticks to attend a demo. Police horses can rarely have had so little to fear. One elderly woman berated two teenage boys for pulling conkers off a tree. Violence seemed unlikely.

There were few anti-hunting demonstrators along the way, though the Urban Alliance had plastered stickers on the gates of the park. “Proof that incest leads to genetic malfunction,” read one. Hard to chant but pleasingly witty. German was marching with his wife, his mother, and friends from the hunt. The march came to a standstill in Pall Mall and did a succession of Mexican waves for the other breed of clubbers on the balconies. A young Scottish soldier offered whisky from a hip flask and explained why he, against regulations, had come along. “It’s the thin end of the wedge. It’ll be shooting and fishing next. Then what are people in the country supposed to do? Sit around drinking cups of tea?”

As we reached Parliament Square, German said he felt he had achieved what he set out to do: to take his cause from his home at the kennels in Motcombe to the door of parliament. This morning, he resumes hunting in earnest; he regretted the days he had to miss to make his point. This afternoon, he will take the hounds to the funeral of a hunt member who died of cancer at 38. It was her last wish that she be buried to the sound of their yelps. Hunting knows how to deal with any death – except of course its own.

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