Horse_amp_amp_Hound__06_February_2018

NEW
SERIES
Farquhar’s
hunting
diary
Pictures by W Parrott Photography and Jo Aldridge
AT the end of January, I had
another trip down memory lane
with a visit to the Meynell and
South Staffordshire.
The proposed outing had not
gone quite according to plan:
originally we had intended to go
on the Tuesday to Walk Farm,
Cauldon, Lowe, the home of David
Barker, a previous huntsman
and famous horseman. A touch
of a bug had put paid to that, but
apparently they had a stormer in
the wall country that day, running
up towards the hills.
However, we were able to
reorganise and go on the Saturday
to the Blythe Inn, near Kingstone
in the South Staffordshire country,
a new venue for them fixed up
by Peter Southwell, joint-master
since 2016 and responsible for
that area.
I must declare a long
admiration of all things Meynell.
My father, Sir Peter Farquhar,
hunted the pack in the early
1930s and it is where he met my
mother, whose family had their
own family pack going up into the
High Peak country — Mr Hurt’s
Hounds — from Alderwasley.
They produced first my
brothers and then me, but more
importantly Meynell Pageant 35,
one of the most influential
pre-war stallion foxhounds.
My uncle, Col Mike Farquhar,
was chairman of the Meynell for
years and lived at Cubley Lodge
near Sudbury in Derbyshire and
as a boy I often stayed there with
my cousins Angela and Daphne.
They had a covert, Beryl’s Gorse,
a famous Meynell find that
had been taken over by starlings,
and every evening for three
nights we were stationed with
guns, horns, and dustbin lids
to bang to try to persuade the
starlings to roost elsewhere as
nothing, not only foxes, but also
little birds and other mammals,
would put up with the starlings’
racket and guano.
BLOODY-MINDED AND
UNCATCHABLE
ANYWAY, some years later,
I and other friends from
Gloucestershire were invited
to the Meynell hunt ball and
to take horses. The ensuing
day’s hunting with Capt Dermot
Kelly was so uplifting — the
drive, the hurry, made such
an impression that I moved
horses there immediately and
hunted with him for the next
two seasons.
Dermot was undoubtedly
one of the best huntsmen I was
ever lucky enough to witness.
He was also one of the most
bloody-minded when things
were going wrong; being near
him then was not a good place
to be, but goodness, he showed
some sport. His main field and
joint-master at the time, Peter
Joint-master Peter
Southwell sits tight over
a well-groomed hedge
Lyster, was as good as any I have
seen. No one dared move until he
dropped the flag and then no one
could catch him.
However, I do remember
one day when we were all sitting
on a bank above a good covert
eyeing up a rather large hedge
below us that was obviously in
line if hounds went that way.
An old Friesian cow with her
fairly generous udder swinging
from side to side came down the
hill, stood back and sailed over
the hedge. We never knew why,
a calf perhaps, but there was
immediately talk of a whip-round
to buy her for the master!
Personally, the sport I had in
the Meynell country invigorated
in me a love of the chase which
may well have been a contributing
factor to my taking the Bicester
and going there with Mrs
Farquhar a year later.
In the early days at the Bicester
we still kept in close contact with
the Meynell using their Growler
74, great, great, great-grandsire
of Beaufort Bailey 05, as well as
using their Latimer 75.
More recently, Johnny
Greenall and David Barker also
knew their onions, as does current
joint-master Will Tatler now,
and so it was not surprising on
the Saturday to see a real quality
selection of bitches arrive outside
the pub at noon on a rather dank
day. The morning had started,
I might add, with a hunt breakfast
that some 40 or 50 stalwarts had
partaken of. I don’t think I can
recall seeing so much food piled
upon our plates; certainly no one
was going to go hungry for the rest
of the day.
‘No one would go
hungry’ thanks to
a huge pre-hunt
breakfast
GOOD SCENT AND
A TREMENDOUS CRY
TO return to the matter in
hand — the acting huntsman
Sam Staniland certainly looked
business-like and, judging by
previous photos taken by our guide
for the day, Erica Byrne, displayed
on a collage in the pub, the
impression was not misleading.
Sam told me he had whippedin
at the Worcestershire to Ian
Starsmore before Ian’s accident
and that he held him in the
highest esteem, and was also
a friend of his Ian’s son Neil,
now our whipper-in at the
Beaufort. It is always nice to
know that the circle goes round.
Wingman for the day, and
apparently for most days they
go out, was Ollie Finnegan from
Leicestershire. He is no mug on
a horse either, in fact there are
not many better, and I would have
loved to have seen the two of them
operate across the best of the old
Meynell country. The hunt horses
we saw that day, produced by Sally
Bowler, certainly looked up to it.
The country we were in was
fairly heavily wooded and not
easily accessible from a car but
the acoustics were excellent.
Although the trails had been
laid in the morning the scenting
conditions were favourable and
we could hear 12 1 ⁄2 couple hunting
with a tremendous cry and up
together all day.
It had been great fun to catch
up with a number of old faces,
and in particular the trouble that
Rachael Morley had taken in
making sure we were well looked
after underlines why she is such
an efficient and popular secretary.
I suggest that if old Meynell
Pageant 35 were to go back there
today he would be happy to climb
into the beds and join the present
incumbents. H&H
8 February 2018 Horse & Hound 47