# John HBolliday 5th Feb



## Clodagh (10 February 2015)

Anyone read his column? What an idiot. Makes it perfectly clear why hunting people are perceived as they are.
He forgets the farming community in the bulk of the UK does not need hunting. Exceptions are the wilder areas, Exmoor, The Lakes, parts of Wales. In areas like East Anglia the hunt provides nothing for wildlife or the wider community. 
We hunted for many years, obsessively so, and loved it. We no longer do. We now have a small syndicate shoot where people pay a lot of money (for them) for us to provide them sport.
Why should we feel any obligation to our friends and neighbours for the hunt to come and gallop around our crops and damage our ELS strips for absolutely no benefit to us whatsoever? We are friends still with many people who hunt and give an excellent lawn meet with a good tea afterwards once our shooting season has finished but it costs us money, apart from giving some friends and many strangers a gallop around our land we gain nothing but a nice day seeing horses and hounds.
He is a complete pillock!


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## Alec Swan (10 February 2015)

Where are his thoughts to be found?

Alec.


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## Clodagh (10 February 2015)

H&H, I don't know if I can scan it in. New computer!
No I can't see how to do it, maybe there is a more techo savvie person out there with a copy of H&H?


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## Happy Hunter (11 February 2015)

Actually I read it the other day - and agree with you OP.
Makes it sound like the countryside (as a whole) - Owe it to the hunting community to throw open their gates and fields just so they (the hunt) can have a good time.

I have a copy in my car - but got cross with photobucket last time I tried!


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## GoblinPony (11 February 2015)

Here you are. I hope this would not be considered a copyright infringement or anything.

http://s1340.photobucket.com/user/g...Uploads/hamph_zpsd982c70d.jpg.html?sort=3&o=2


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## Alec Swan (11 February 2015)

GoblinPony said:



			Here you are. I hope this would not be considered a copyright infringement or anything.

http://s1340.photobucket.com/user/g...Uploads/hamph_zpsd982c70d.jpg.html?sort=3&o=2

Click to expand...

H&H to HHO should prove no conflict.  

J. Holliday it seems,  has no idea of the complexities of running a 'Let' Shoot,  or the demands which are on the keeper.  Let shooting is run as a business,  and whilst there certainly is room for coexistence (vital in fact),  those who follow Hounds have to understand that the world has changed.  With Gundog Field Trials,  when I worked as a keeper,  it was always by grace and favour that ground was let for the purpose,  and nowadays,  the Trial Societies pay for their days,  with the possible exception of the Championships.  

Mark my words,  the day will arrive when those who run their own shoots will call for payment for the privilege of Hounds to enter their coverts,  and that will almost certainly achieve the end which a pointless Act failed to achieve.

Alec.


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## FemelleReynard (11 February 2015)

'All of them allow the hunt unrestricted access, for no other reason than common courtesy and a healthy respect for their fellow man, for which I am genuinely indebted' 

Surely shows he understands the hunt offers no benefit to farmers/shooting, but he's thankful for them letting him cross the land, which contradicts your opening points?


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## Clodagh (11 February 2015)

So those of us who don't are discourteous? I give you that you have quoted a bit that makes him look good and I have quoted a bit which doesn't!
Alec, I think the hunts still think they exist back in the day when the Squire owned the land and did as he wished. Still the case round her with the Thurlow and some others but not in our neck of the woods. Payment, or at least making good damage, would not be unreasonable.
Whether the hunt will ever be here again after the last meet (end of Jan). They are totally unwelcome on our neighbours land, have never been allowed on since an unfortunate event 20 years ago which caused serious bad feeling. When they were here they went off our water meadows and along his wheat, all over his wheat, not on the wide grass verge, and that was just the field having a jolly, the huntsman and hounds were elsewhere. How is that justifiable? It causes problems for us and we get on well with next door.


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## Clodagh (11 February 2015)

GoblinPony said:



			Here you are. I hope this would not be considered a copyright infringement or anything.

http://s1340.photobucket.com/user/g...Uploads/hamph_zpsd982c70d.jpg.html?sort=3&o=2

Click to expand...

Thank you GP!


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## FemelleReynard (11 February 2015)

No, I didn't say it made you discourteous if you didn't, I'm just demonstrating that he isn't as bad as you made out in your first post. If I went on what you'd said in your first post, I would have thought he was an awful man. However, on reading the article, I can see your points, but I can also see that he isn't the completely arrogant idiot who thinks the world revolves around hunting which you'd kind of implied (well that's what I inferred from your points anyway). I hold my hands up to him - I wouldn't want to write a column about hunting as you're never going to please everybody and you're bound to get some stick for doing it.


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## Clodagh (11 February 2015)

AJT92 said:



			No, I didn't say it made you discourteous if you didn't, I'm just demonstrating that he isn't as bad as you made out in your first post. If I went on what you'd said in your first post, I would have thought he was an awful man. However, on reading the article, I can see your points, but I can also see that he isn't the completely arrogant idiot who thinks the world revolves around hunting which you'd kind of implied (well that's what I inferred from your points anyway). I hold my hands up to him - I wouldn't want to write a column about hunting as you're never going to please everybody and you're bound to get some stick for doing it.
		
Click to expand...

 No you are right, that is what I implied and to me that is how he came across.


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## RunToEarth (13 February 2015)

He's a born and bred hunting man, I'm sure there are as many passionate shoot syndicates who are equally as ignorant to the effort put in to hunting. I do completely agree that his column doesn't show him in a good light - in the flesh he is much more normal.


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## Happy Hunter (14 February 2015)

It's a chance that it may have been edited in a way to change his original point. You are right though, its a very tough column to write. I would probably annoy everyone in one piece!


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## Alec Swan (14 February 2015)

RTE,  perhaps it's parallel could be as on here.  How often do we write,  and then have others misunderstand our real purpose?  I wonder if 'smilies' would help! 

That Field Masters are sometimes a little thoughtless when considering the question of crop damage cannot be denied.  A large field thundering about on winter drill is going to cause costly damage,  and I suspect that there will be those F_Ms who wouldn't know drilled wheat from grass.  Was it the case that previously,  the Master would all so often be the land owner over who's ground the field rode,  or perhaps his tenants?  Today,  as you will realise,  the pressures on those who farm to maximise yields is such that the pock marks left by the Field are more than just an eyesore.  There was a time when Spring drilling was a common enough event,  so land which was fallow wouldn't be seen as damaged.  Today,  of course,  winter drilling is the norm,  just about everywhere,  and drill is at risk.  I think that it's also true that much of the land in this country which was previously down to grass,  and for the benefit of livestock,  is now ploughed and cropped.

I'm still of the view that Hunting is at a greater risk from the pressures of shooting and farming,  than from the collection of balaclavad clowns who's pathetic attempts at disruption are seen as a threat to sport.  It also can't be denied that those hunting dinosaurs,  and they live on,  who ride roughshod over not just land but people,  are doing Hunting a grave disservice.  It was only last year,  when a loud and obnoxious bag of lard,  turned his horse around amongst the Field and in a narrow lane,  backed in to my old Landrover,  dented the wing and flattened the mirror,  and without any apology simply rode off.  A follower walked up,  rearranged the mirror,  and looking to heaven,  mouthed an apology.  At least there was one with a modicum of manners.

Those who Hunt have to consider their own future,  look in to life's mirror,  and see themselves as others see them.

Alec.


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