Photo by BothSidesPhotography
As our respective seasons come to an end in the northern hemisphere, I would not be sure how the weather has been behaving itself in the US, but here in England and the rest of the UK, we have experienced one of the wettest years on record. Coming on the back of one of the driest in memory it certainly has given Masters and those who are at the very sharp end of hunting considerable challenges in keeping the ‘tamborin a rolling.’ In some areas the season was curtailed by just a few weeks, in others the use of roads and tracks has been an obvious answer. However, the most gratifying aspect of all is to find that our farmers, be they arable men or stockmen, are still the greatest friends to hunting.
Coming from a family who seems to have been involved with the sport for rather a long time has been a privilege to say the least. This is largely due to the very large cross section of people we have worked with, the hounds we have bred, and those vulpine friends of ours who have kept us on our toes for many a year! It has not only been our way of life for four generations of our family, it is far more than that. Hunting seems to be engrained in us, and if you think that as a member of the Barclay family you can escape from it, that I can tell you will not be looked upon as an option!
It all started with my Great-Grandfather, who was in the Bank. His office was at Cheapside which at the time was the Bank’s headquarters in the heart of City of London, and was a very short commute from where the family were living at Roydon. His heart, however, was not in banking; he was much more interested in hunting and the countryside. Therefore it wasn’t long before he decided to form his own pack of Harriers and to hunt an area directly to the north of our Capital City.
Most of the land he hunted over has now been engulfed by urban development. It is almost unbelievable to think that in the late 1880s he would hack his hounds across to Tottenham Station and put them on the train up to Norfolk and Suffolk for their annual hunting holiday. Sadly it is Tottenham where the riots started that spread across our Inner Cities like wildfire in the summer of 2011. In not long over a hundred years that part of rural Hertfordshire and Essex has been swallowed up into what now can only describe as very much part of Greater London. Only last year I was lucky enough to visit a large schools event in that particular area which gave young people the chance to learn about the Countryside and its traditions. It was therefore somewhat strange to be taking a London cab to a place where his Harriers would have met and hunted just over a hundred years before. What was even more peculiar on that occasion was, what is now the nearest pack to that part of the world, the De Burgh and North Essex Hare Hounds, were there on display!
Great-Grandfather could obviously sense that London was moving out to meet him. So, after several enjoyable seasons with his Harriers as well as hunting with the Essex he moved to Brent Pelham in North Hertfordshire, which was much more rural and where the majority of the family are still till this day. It was from here in 1896 that he was to take on the Mastership of the Puckeridge, a hunt that had been going through what could only describe as somewhat turbulent times. Well something must have gone right, for a hundred and sixteen years later, and with hunting having changed somewhat, I am delighted to say a fourth generation is still there. My only sister, who is now in her twenty-sixth season as Master, is going as strong as ever.
When I say hunting has changed in this relatively small country of ours, I think we all know what has been the most significant change, but we are not going to go there in this article, and why? The reason is that, from the advent of the railways, to barbed wire, two World Wars, and a vast increase in our urban population, hunting despite everything that has been thrown at it, is still here, in whatever form it takes. Its popularity is ever increasing. So any Master living through the last century, like my great-grandfather, grandfather, and father must have had moments when they would have thought their beloved sport could not survive any longer. However, it would seem every time we were at our lowest ebb we somehow managed to pull back from the brink and hunting began, despite all the difficulties, to flourish again. Not unlike, in a funny sort of way, our fox population, which in his own particular vulpine way has gone to the edge and yet come back from it time and time again in a way which no one will ever truly understand. The hunted and the hunter in this context, I believe, have a complex but truly fascinating thread.
I hope you will enjoy my letters from England. They will be designed not only to update you on what is happening over here but hopefully to further integrate our two countries’ field sportsmen together in our greatest rural tradition—hunting.
May I thank Norman for kindly giving me the opportunity to write for Foxhunting Life, and may we all raise a glass “To Hunting,” wherever we are in the world!
Please feel free to contact me on Facebook (Maurice James Barclay) or email.
Posted April 6, 2013
See Norm Fine’s Blog for his introduction of James Barclay to FHL readers.