Ten years ago today (22 September) 407,791 country people from up and down the UK assembled in London for the Liberty and Livelihood March, to show their opposition to the hunting act and other threats to country life.
Today the Countryside Alliance (CA) is still fighting the same campaigns. And the fight to repeal the hunting act continues.
CA president Baroness Mallalieu said: “It is the determination to keep going whatever the threats and difficulties which has sustained our community in the difficult times over the past ten years.
“It has been tough – it may get tougher yet, but the rallies and demonstrations and marches gave our community for the first time an identity, a voice and a sense of power.
“We all remember how it felt. Those five years changed all our lives.”