Most uplifting sight of the trip so far...

They came to the end of that bit of country and had to pick up to move to the next draw. In doing so we passed through Acton Turvil where I saw the most uplifting sight of the trip so far. Hounds went past the primary school, and it was recess. Every one of the children, fifty or so, lined the school yard wall to watch and cheer hounds. You can’t buy or force the grins we saw, or the whoops and cries of “Wicked!”

Most entertaining sight so far was the teacher. As her charges flowed like a tsunami from their usual games to the passing parade, she was obviously very upset. She shot a quiver full of disgusted looks at the brutal hunters, savage hounds, and deluded children. Then she turned angrily toward the building and stalked back. Clearly her pupils had failed to receive the message, and further indoctrination WOULD follow lunch.

Poor children. But eighty years from now, there might be some old old English man or woman who tells a child – almost secretly, because hunting is one of those things like slavery and the Empire about which we must appear to be ashamed- about the day the lovely hounds and powerful horses with their gorgeous riders passed right by the school grounds. Over there, where the MacTesco parking lot is now, beside the tower block apartments and the Mosque. And like the navvies and the knights, we will have become barely imaginable giants of the past.