REFERRING to Mr Ogilvy's diatribe concerning foxhunting (Letters, October 5), I am neither pro or con but wish to make several observations.

Tradition is important and we should be grateful that enthusiasts continue to uphold our British way of life. But in most time-honoured pursuits, modifications have been introduced over the years in the interests of safety and common sense.

Thus jousting, an enjoyable spectacle, does not result in many serious injuries and after centuries of bare knuckle fighting, gloves were introduced.

The hunts should advance into the modern world and either follow a trail, as has been the custom in the Lakes for centuries, or get some bright young man to invent a computer-guided "fox robot" which they can chase all day, terminating at a "kill" outside the Brewer's Arms or some other desirable location where Stirrup Cups can be enjoyed, and the cuts and bruises displayed with the same pride as always.

I am old enough to remember pre-war hunts and pre-war miners' strikes. Such hunts were always viewed benignly by the miners as a sport of the "landed gentry". But it is doubtful whether those privileged few ever gave a thought to the conditions under which the miners were obliged to exist in order to finance the so-called gentry.

Surely we now live in a more enlightened age. The miners were justified in striking, they wished to prevent the unnecessary closures of their place of work. To suggest that people employed in breeding dogs and so forth can be viewed in the same light is contemptible.

Joe Jones,

Rawcliffe Lane,

York.

Updated: 10:56 Monday, October 11, 2004