THE fox hunting issue is on the table again and arguments for and against raise further questions. My attitude to hunting with or without dogs is one of uneasy neutrality. During the latter half of the 1930s I lived on a country estate and witnessed traditional fox hunting in full cry, not as one of the privileged class but simply because my father was an employee there.

My own experience is that the fox usually wins, that’s to say he is not caught in the chase but is safely laid in his lair long before the hint arrives. So far so good, if people wish to gallop about the countryside in constant peril of a fall at every ditch or five bar gate, well, stranger things happen at sea.

But what happens next is the best (or worst?) argument against hunting as a sport. Instead of saluting crafty Reynard as the victor and returning happily to base to enjoy fruit cake and port wine, he is dug out to be torn to pieces by the pack of baying hounds.

This act of itself begs the question, in what respect does such cruelty differ from the sadistic slaying of deer as reported earlier this year in the Echo? No doubt the arguments for and against will continue, but finally it all boils down to conscience and individual choice. Cruelty to animals in Britain is mild compared to the rest of the world, but there is room for improvement. Perhaps a poem penned many years agowill provide and is appropriate to end this letter.

If he/she happens to be looking over my shoulder in spirit as I write, I feel certain that he/she will excuse the liberties taken with his/her work. Though drastically altered to bring it up to date, the sentiment remains intact.

The bells of Heaven would ring, the wildest peal for years,

If Vicar lost his sense and parishioners came to theirs, And he and they together knelt down with angry prayers, For ill-used creatures great and small, For donkeys, seals, and bears, and badgers, battery hens and whales and little hunted hares.

A Dixon

Coppice Court

Weymouth