The author with renowned sporting photographer Jim Meads at the Peterborough Hound Show / Ginnie Beard photo
Life is full of amazing flukes—or coincidences—but for me by far the largest percentage have had something to do with foxhunting. So, starting at the beginning, I can hear the phone ringing and on the other end of the line is my Aunt April.
“You’ll never believe it,” she said, “but I’ve just been to the dentist and while sitting in the Waiting Room I picked up a copy of Hounds magazine. Remembering that you write for them, I was very interested to have a look at it. Imagine my amazement when I opened it and there was a photograph of my mother! She was riding side-saddle on her horse, San Toy, ready to hack to the meet.”
I had a feeling Aunt April would find something I had written. Otherwise she’d not have rung. However, that she would open the magazine and see a photograph of her mother—my grandmother—was very funny, and we both had a good laugh. The article was about the ‘value of keeping hunting logs.’”
“What a fluke,” said Aunt April, and we hung up.
It turned out to be the summer for coincidences…or flukes. Not long after my aunt’s call, I found myself in for another round of these extra-sensory moments.
We were visiting the States and had been invited to stay with John Coles, MFH of the Orange County Hounds in Virginia. This was hugely generous of both himself and his wife. Not only had they given us a small cottage for the stay, but had also asked us to dinner on our first night there, after the Virginia Foxhound Show. No sooner had we arrived for dinner than there was a power outage and we had to eat dinner by candlelight—which I will never forget. The lights flickered on and off through the meal which made for light-hearted amusement for us guests and further worries for our hosts.
I must explain that it was my habit to give any family we visited a copy of Hounds magazine. I had brought several copies from England, but such had been the pace of things that I had not had time to read this recent issue myself. When we sat for dinner, John opened the magazine.
“Well, well, here we are,” he said. “The Orange County Hounds on the middle-page spread in Hounds magazine. Look at that!”
It was a series of photographs of American hounds, and amongst them was John with his hounds. Here, thousands of miles from England I give an English hunting magazine to our host and hostess and in it is an article about American packs and a photograph of my host and his hounds. Totally appropriate to the occasion, and I hadn’t had a clue! What were the odds? All this and a power outage, too.
We then traveled northward to the Bryn Mawr Hound Show. It was a route I had traveled before, when we freeloaders from England come over for the Virginia show then to the other show held one week later in Pennsylvania. As do many folks. However, not many are as lucky as we have been, in that on both occasions Jeep Cochran allowed us to be thorough nuisances by staying with her. She is the most generous person in the world.
It was, on this second occasion, the turn of my traveling companion to have the next magazine moment. As he went to bed that night, what should he spy on the bedside table but a copy of the UK magazine, The Field.
“Nice of Jeep to be so thoughtful,” he told us the next morning. By now you may have guessed what happened. He opened the magazine and there staring him in the face was a boatyard in England. Not any old boatyard, but the boatyard where his son designed and built yachts!
Back in England, again, attending the Peterborough Hound Show. I am in the Hounds magazine tent talking to Michael Sagar, our Editor, and I’m telling him about my first article for a series we planned on the subject of Hound Intelligence.
“Michael, I was absolutely thrilled to get a story this week from John Masterton, MFH of the Melbourne Hunt in Australia.”
Not a moment after I uttered those words, I hear a voice over my shoulder.
“Good morning, I am John Masterton from the Melbourne Hunt. I flew in from Australia yesterday!’”
Several years later, again at the Peterborough Hound Show, and with the temperature at one hundred degrees Fahrenheit, I was interviewing Micky Wills, then huntsman of the Grafton Foxhounds. He was telling me the story of his life and the places where he had worked.
“One of the most wonderful jobs I had was in America. I was fortunate enough to get the job as huntsman with the Iroquois Hunt in Kentucky. Jerry Miller was the Master then.”
At the time we were sitting under a small tree sheltering from the hot sun. As the sun moved, we moved, until finally facing the entrance to the show ground.
“Oh, look,” said Micky, “do look. There is Jerry Miller; he’s just walked in through the gates!”
I think this is enough for now, but there must be hundreds of you out there who have had similar fun, flukes, coincidences, or extra-sensory moments—call it what you will. Do add your comments.
Posted February 16, 2021
Well, Diedre, since you ask for more, I’ll start. I could well have been walking through that gate right beside Jerry Miller that day; I traveled with him to the Peterborough Show several times as his guest. Did you happen to see a skinny, bald-headed guy with Jerry? Oh, that right, I would have been wearing the de riguer straw Panama. -Ed.