Voices of the Countryside

You may have seen the story: the 2010 Equality Act could protect people who hunt. Here’s how it could play.

An interview at the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre has led to column inches and TV debates. Ed Swales of Hunting Kind, a group dedicated to ‘natural hunting’ with hound, ferret and hawk, obtained legal opinion which says that people who hunt could have “protected characteristics” under the 2010 Equality Act and that they must establish cases of discrimination against them. He announced his findings at the Game Fair.

Thanks to the publicity, the UK’s media has enthusiastically taken up the idea of protecting people who hunt or shoot in the same way that the law protects Roma or LGBTQ communities. There was an article in the Daily Telegraph, then the Guardian, then the Daily Mail, and hot on their heels came the TV interviews, on Good Morning Britain and even I got the call-up from GBNews.

There are few solid arguments against it, except for the emotional. Ed had one interviewer pointing out that Ed chooses to hunt, that he could choose not to hunt. The answer to that is that we choose to do everything – shop in supermarkets, go on country walks – that's culture. The culture Ed is defending is a different culture to the interviewer's and Ed is trying to protect it.

My faithful farm truck sits in the yard, not exactly sure how it is supposed to spend its days - or justify its hefty running costs. What's the future for such a loyal beast?

Join me, if you will, in some automotive anthropomorphism, and spare a thought for Tigger the Terracan, who sits in the farmyard, having a bit of an existential crisis.

Tigger, you see, is my farm 4x4, and, since our semi-retirement, it hasn’t had much in the way of work. When we were full-on farming, it was out and about most days: hauling, carrying, towing and giving lifts and shuttling me back and forth from my tractor and combine. And in all those tasks, it was pretty well unbeatable. But now its days are quieter. Almost too quiet.  

The life of a huntsman can sound idyllic – but life in kennels is tougher than it might look

For many a young thruster, or a hound-loving puppy walker, being a huntsman is the ultimate dream job. 

To have your very own pack of hounds who look to you for instruction; to lead the pack in your scarlet coat, and uncover the mystery of the ‘golden thread’ – the so-called invisible connection between a huntsman and his hounds. Surely that doesn't sound like a chore?

The pomp and the ceremony are all very well, and watching the hounds parade with the huntsman blowing them on is a spectacle which the public love to see. But what is the reality of a huntsman’s job and lifestyle? Behind the gleaming brass buttons and the polished boots, what does the day-to-day look like?

With hunting traditionally sticking to set ‘seasons’, the job varies depending on where we are in the hunting calendar. Perhaps one of the first things to learn is that the hunting year starts on the 1 May. 

We pay a high price for the privilege of getting lost in the back country - but is it worth it?

I was not new to it - it was my third day hunting quail in Arizona so I knew what I should expect, but the frigid air that hit me was a surprise. I had never had to travel in the small hours before. It was necessary to get where we were going and leave enough of the early morning for hunting.

Joe appeared out of the night. His Ford F150 truck, fully tricked, crept into the parking lot off the interstate. Nothing that big should move that quietly in the dark. 

Joe’s wife had been up early, and she had been busy. “That’s bacon, eggs and French toast”. He handed over breakfast. There was a confident air about Joe that made him almost certain of finding his quarry and getting home, no matter what happened; no matter how deep in the back country he went.   His mountaineering days were numbered when his boy was born, and when his little girl came along, they were finished. Hunting and guiding had taken over.

When he bow hunts in these hills for Mule deer he wears a .45 on his hip – “you never know who you'll meet out here” he explained  – but that extra precaution isn’t necessary when quail hunting with a shotgun. He had what the grey, middle-level management of the mundane, bill-paying desk job he’d left behind would have described as ‘transferable skills’. No manager was needed for Joe; he was his own performance review and he had the only key indicators that mattered in the dog box of the truck.

Looking ahead to the new grouse season, I think about my own birds in Galloway and the national picture at a time of great change and upheaval in Scotland.

The signs are set for a decline into autumn, and the moor grass has turned into straw. The start of the grouse season is upon us, and there’s a certain amount to look forward to in the hills of home. Despite some rough weather in the middle of June, the hatch in Galloway was fine and clear when it came in the last week of May. There were grouse chicks in the moss from the 27th, and some of these little birds were bold enough by the time the weather changed that it didn’t faze them.

Grouse which lost their eggs at the first attempt were still sitting when the cold rain came, so today there’s something of a split between well-grown, almost-adult birds which fly strongly when flushed and tiny little cheepers which buzz around in the moss like bees. The next problem is heather beetle damage which became obvious in early July on several of the estates where I work across the Southern Uplands. This can be a major issue in the short term as grouse abandon beetly areas, but the damage is rarely so bad as it seems at first and repair is usually straightforward.

When forecasts are posted about grouse prospects each summer, they often refer to the most productive areas of moorland in northern England and north east Scotland. From the highest point of my hill, I can look forty miles east towards the big North Pennine moors. Grouse moor management has become ever more localised over the past few years, particularly since large areas of the west have been marginalised and abandoned for sporting interests. Not many grouse will be shot in Galloway this season, and the sport itself now has most of its grouse eggs in a few little baskets. It makes sense that when cold rain blows across the North Pennines at the wrong moment, an entire season can be wiped out in a day or two.

With record numbers of A level students shunning University courses, can Modern Apprenticeships be the means of filling the gaps in our 'lost rural skills'.

Attending university has been seen as the next step after school for the majority of British young people. In 1999 Tony Blair, then into his second year as Prime Minister announced his demand that 50% of all school leavers should go into Higher Education, in order he claimed, so that Britain would succeed in the ‘knowledge economy’. Twenty years later, Blair’s dream was realised, yet this was deemed insufficient by the man. In 2021, the ex PM demanded that seven in ten teenagers should attend Uni. This refrain was echoed by Lord Johnson, brother of another former Prime Minister, who claimed, despite 53% of the UK’s school leavers already attending University that “We still don’t have enough highly skilled individuals to fill many vacancies today.” This PR campaign by political figures, was unsurprisingly endorsed by a swathe of academics attached to the 160 or so UK Universities.

However, this norm for youthful society appears to be coming to an end. School leavers are now turning their backs on degrees and choosing to leave the dreaming spires to their slumber. Analysis this week by The Times reveals that 18 of the 24 Russell Group Universities still have vacancies in more than 4,000 of their degree courses.

Come the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, I shall be in Team GB - so long as they change the events

What impressed you most at the Olympics opening ceremony this year? Axelle Saint-Cirel’s magnificent rendition of La Marseillaise, surely the world’s most stirring national anthem? The can-can dancers? Or perhaps Alexandre Kantorow tinkling away on his piano despite the deluge?

For me, I’m ashamed to say, it was my unfamiliarity with some of the countries represented. Yes, I have my Geography O-level and an old Times Atlas bought at the village church fete but Sao Tome and Principe, Burkina Faso and Eswatini required some red-faced Googling, for which I apologise to their citizens.

And not just for my ignorance.

Whenever I see a small, proud nation at the Olympic ceremony I have a secret desire to join its national team, partly because I’m good at waving to crowds (albeit they’re unaware) but mostly because I’m an absolute gold-medal hope at shindigs and nowhere, I bet, parties harder than the Olympic Village - a feeling confirmed by a mate who’d stayed there throughout the 2012 London bash.

In today's increasingly urbanised and digital society, young people are more disconnected from nature and the countryside than ever before. But in the absence of any kind of national plan to re-engage them with wildlife and ecosystems, how can parents and caregivers encourage kids to take an interest in the natural world, and what are the pitfalls to watch out for? 

George Browne and Marcus Janssen discuss how they have shared their love of fieldsports with their children, and how this has fostered a love of nature in them. They swap theories about the right approaches - especially with very young kids - as well as their respective successes and the times when things have not gone according to plan.

Marcus Janssen - The Joy and the Drama... but Mostly the Drama

Richard Negus - Crafting a Future: the Need for Rural Apprenticeships

Roger Morgan-Grenville - Less Serengeti, more Sheffield: combating nature illiteracy

What does a country boy and angler do on holiday when he’s left his rods at home and is reading a book by Hunter S.Thompson? The answer is to reflect on really unimportant things in life, like why are cricket and fishing actually the same.

Shit it’s hot. It’s 35 degrees out there, the sand burns the skin off the bottom of my feet, and I could do with a large rum in a glass full of ice.

I want to write about stuff I like - and I want to do it in the style of Hunter S. Thompson. I’ll fail to do that well, but I’m going to try anyway.

OK, so this is self indulgent, but I’ve decided I don’t care.

At last I’ve got time to disengage my brain and quieten the voices. I need to think about things that really don't matter while I lie on a Portuguese beach, roasting my feet as they poke out from under a sunshade into the glare of a cloudless sky. 

There’s the noise of waves breaking, the chatter of other holidaymakers gibbering at each other. The weirdness of a large Portuguese man, who for some strange reason is dressed as a ship’s captain, cap at a jaunty angle, dinging a tiny bell and then loudly trying to sell people doughnuts for six Euros from his cooler. 

Each wave first gathers up, then releases the troubles of our world as it crashes. 

“What shall we talk about?” my wife, who is bronzing nicely, says from the next lounger along. 

Sharing some of my personal experiences and stories from the moors of ground nesting birds, their parenting skills and what I have learnt along the way!

One of the Scribehound team once told me that one has 3 seconds to capture to someone's attention on social media otherwise they move on. A rather sad but true indictment of our society today. The irony is not lost on me when comparing the hours I spend with moorland birds.

My favourite and best technique is to try and spend time with them with the car switched off, allowing them to settle down and resume their normal behaviour as a pair of birds or a young family. I can sometimes spend an hour or more with a particular species and this is when the best photographs are often achieved which may or may not grab someone's attention in those few seconds.

Whether that or those images grab anyone's attention or not, for me a benefit of time on the fell with these birds is getting to observe and learn about each species particular behaviour and that of their young.

As someone who spends a lot of their time with birds, I certainly have my favourites and have witnessed lots of behaviours in different species. For example, the oystercatcher is by far one of the best parents on the moor, whereas the lapwing is probably one of the worst! These are some of my personal experiences when out on the moors with some of our incredible UK wildlife.