A rural way of life

SEVENTEEN-year-old huntsman Josh Bentley is one of the estimated 13,600 whose job, home and way of life are at risk when the ban on hunting with dogs comes into force in February.

Josh is an ordinary teenager, from a humble background, with a passion for hounds and fox hunting. Like most people who live for hunting, he is far from the stereotype of a ruby-coated toff who sips stirrup cups while sitting astride horses worth more than the average family saloon car.

Every day at 6am Josh, a kennelman and second whip for the Middleton Hunt, washes down the 70 pedigree Studbook hounds' yards and then exercises them round the Birdsall countryside.

Other daily tasks include working in the "flesh house", skinning and chopping up fallen stock which local farmers bring for the hounds to eat, treating lame hounds and, during hunting season, hours of preparing the smart huntsmen's garb - buffing boots, washing whips, and polishing bronze jacket buttons and the horn.

"I love it," said Josh. "It's always what I wanted to do. The hounds are like pets. I know all their names and they've all got their own characters. I've ridden horses since I was walking and I've always been into hunting.

"I don't see how they can come and stop us doing what we want. The more police they have in the countryside trying to stop us chasing a fox, the less they'll have on the streets fighting real crime."

Josh, who was first involved with the Staintondale Hunt near his home village of Harwoodale, near Scarborough, said a common misconception was that the 300 packs of quarry hounds in England, Scotland and Wales could become domestic pets; he says it would be impossible because they are pack animals.

"The hounds will all have to be put down. We won't be able to rehome them," he said.

Charlie Gundry, 24, who has been master of the Middleton Hunt since May, said: "Josh is a good example of a working-class lad who works for the hunt and gets dressed up and looks bloody smart. It shows that it's not just toffs galloping around."

The Middleton Hunt is one of the oldest in the country dating from 1764. Its hunting country spans a width of 40 miles.

The area used to be much larger, but area was given up to allow the Holderness Hunt and the York and Ainsty Hunt to be established

"(When the sport is banned) I think, most importantly, a vital social aspect of the rural community will be lost and we will certainly lose a large interaction between the classes," said Mr Gundry. "There's a mutual respect between all of them.

"Lady-so-and-so doesn't have any more right (to hunt) than a farm worker. Everyone in the hunting field is equal. That's the lovely thing about it, everyone's equal."

As the Countryside Alliance prepares to fight the ban in the courts, Mr Gundry is one of the tens of thousands of hunt followers who are determined to fight it in the countryside by acts of mass civil disobedience.

"When it's banned I'll lose my job, my way of life and my house. I'm going to carry on hunting and break the law and quite happily take the consequences of my actions," said Mr Gundry.

Much of the animosity felt in the countryside against the Government stems from the sentiment that the Hunting Bill was steam-rollered through into the statute books by MPs who understand little of the rural way of life.

Dick Tonks, of North Duffield, a terrier man with the York and Ainsty Hunt, worked as a miner for 21 years before he was made redundant in 1984.

"I paid money week in, week out, to the union that funded the Labour Government. I've been kicked in the teeth by the very people we put in power. It's a bit ironic really isn't it? This started as a cruelty against animals issue, but it's turned into a class war."

Groom Emma Robinson, 28, of Terrington, looks after five hunters at stables in Farlington owned by Edward Duke, who follows the Middleton Hunt and is a founder of the militant group The Real Countryside Alliance. She works six days a week keeping the horses fed, watered, groomed and exercised, and hunts at least twice a week.

Emma has been on all the major pro-hunting rallies. She protested in Hyde Park in 1997, has marched in Edinburgh, Bournemouth and Newcastle, and was at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton in September. She also drove a wagon on the M25 "go slow" to demonstrate the paralysing effect mass civil disobedience could have on the country.

"I've hunted since before I could walk. I'm from Barnsley originally. My mum and dad hunted and so did my grandparents before them. Down there, I was really one on my own. I got some jip at school. It just proves we come from all walks of life. It's not just the wealthy people that hunt. The ban will mean I'll lose my job and my way of life," she said.

"I just don't think the general public realise that if hunting is banned there will be so much more cruelty in the countryside than there is already. Farmers will annihilate foxes. Snaring and gassing are far more cruel (than hunting). Hunting gets rid of the lame, old foxes that resort to killing farm animals; lambs, chickens and wildfowl, because they are too ill to chase their own prey; rabbits. Foxes kill for the sake of killing. Farmers have a right to protect their stock."

The pro-hunter who now fights for the foxes

Animal rights campaigner Annabel Holt believes foxes are "wonders of the universe" and should be revered.

Ms Holt, of Stearsby, hunted throughout Yorkshire, principally with the Middleton and the Sinnington hunts, and across England and abroad for 40 years before becoming an animal rights campaigner 14 years ago. Her face is well-known with local hunt followers as she often mounts peaceful protests at their meets.

"Foxes are perfected. They have been on the planet for thousands of years and I see them as our genetic treasures, which is why I call them the wonders of the universe," said Ms Holt, who lives on a remote farm with her 29 dogs.

Asked how she feels about the Hunting Bill making the statute books, Ms Holt said legislation was also needed to ban shooting animals for sport.

"It's a balance actually," she said. "I feel elation on one side and then unease on the other. It's the people who are shooting who are absolutely annihilating our wildlife. I hope they are going to outlaw shooting too.

"Foxes do not need to be controlled because they self-regulate according to the food supply."

Ms Holt said that she became a "hunt saboteur on a horse" while hunting by trying to hide the foxes' scent.

"I've come from being an extreme pro-hunter and with reasoned thinking, to completely the opposite, that I value the genetic marvels"

Updated: 11:09 Monday, November 22, 2004