Gunwalloe - Church Cove
View across Church Cove in Gunwalloe at the base of the Lizard Peninsula.
The church is St Winwalloe with it's distinctively seperate bell tower and surrounding Tamarisk hedge....
newlyn house
Wonderfully painted frontage....
rogers tower
A folly built 18th C, for Mr Rogers, a local landowner....
I arrived for the 11.00 meet an hour early. The people just kept coming. By 11.00 there were about 150 mounted and best part of 1000 people on foot.
The hunt set off after a trail that had been laid. The person laying the trail took it not just across fields but through woods too to make the day as realistic as possible. We set off and at one point the hounds came through the hedge near where we stood. They were running well but almost silently. The huntsman followed with the "field" about a quarter of a mile behind. A police 4x4 was with them. They stopped at the top of the field where we stood with hounds in a spinney about half a mile away.After about 10 minutes the police vehicle moved up to the spinney.He witnessed a fox being killed.
Hounds had marked it to ground and one terrier was entered and the holes netted. The fox bolted and was caught and shot with a pistol. The body was then given to the hounds to break up. The terrier men photographed everything to show that they acted entirely within the law. After a while the hounds moved off again and we lost them. At about 2.00 we discovered that the hunt had packed up for the day as one of the riders had taken a nasty fall and the air ambulance was called in.
Anyway we went back to the "big house" which has two private driveways
both about half a mile long.The hounds had been boxed and had left and most of the horses had too. We were just standing around chewing the cud as you do when a car came up the drive and the terriermen recognised the passenger as an anti - the driver was a journalist.
A few seconds later a land rover coming up the other drive drove into the back of a pick up and had the man standing behind it not moved as quickly as he did would have had his legs broken at the very least.Two other people were hit with glancing blows.
Seven or eight sabs jumped out of the land rover and at least 6 had hand held camcorders which they proceeded to push in the faces of those of us there and screaming abuse. At this stage there were 2 police officers present.Much shouting ensued from both sides and the police tried to seperate the two sides.The pros tried to open the back of the vehicle saying that there were baseball bats etc in there. They were stopped by the police. The police were asked to search the vehicle for themselves. They said that they could not do this as they had no power to search a vehicle on private land.
One of the men who had been hit by the land rover told the police to get the name and address of the driver. This again the police refused to do. They were then asked to remove the sabs because they were unlawfully attacking a legal activity. The police said that the hunt that they were sent to police had packed up so that could not be done.
You can imagine how annoyed people were that some had been hit with a car but apparently the police could do nothing. Much discussion some heated was had with the police. I asked a seargent who was there at the time of the incident why he did not arrest the driver. His answer to me was that his primary objective was to stop the two sides getting at each other.As there were only two of them there at the timehe was worried that if he had tried to arrest the sab that he would then "have had 14 of them on top of me" Those were his EXACT words. We said that had that happened we would have pulled them off but this seemed to cut no ice.
We pleaded with them (more were arriving ) to stop the antis vehicle and take the details of the driver but they obviously thought that the best course of action was to allow them to leave.
We stood around for a while longer, many of us in disbelief that the police had felt so threatened by the sabs that they failed to take action. One of the terrier men said to me that this is what they get every week and it is precisely because the police wont take action that the sabs get away with what they do. I asked why they were all turning up after the sabs had left and was told that we were not the only hunt out.My response was "so you admit you cannot police this ban then?" It went unanswered.
Anyway after another 20 minutes or so we all said our goodbyes and made our way home.
At the end of the drive when I left were 4 police cars. One of them was a transit van and there were at least a dozen of them. As I passed the gate at the other ond of the estate there were 4 more vehicles and about another dozen policemen.We shook our heads in disbelief that despite all the police there incidents such as this could happen.About a quarter of a mile down the road in a pub car park were two more transits full to the brim and two patrol cars.A further half a mile or so and three more vehicles passed on their way to join the others.A mile further on there were 2 more on a motorway bridge but they might have been trying to catch REAL criminals doing a couple of miles an hour over the speed limit.
So to summarise.
150 mounted and about a thousand on foot had a perfectly legal day hunting where a fox was killed .After the hunting had finished sabs hit 2 hunt followers with a vehicle in full view of two police officers who refused to even take the name of the driver. When the antis had gone there were 15 police cars and about 40 policemen crawling all over the estate and surrounding roads.
It looked like fox hunting, a fox was killed, pros were assaulted and 40 police did nothing.
Sounds like St Buryan was exciting today.
The shoe is now on the other foot, for ages the Sabs have always been hassled and now they have been left to carry out their duties with police protection. Well done.
A fox was killed, there should be prosecutions.
Soon the hunters will give up and grow uop and get real pastimes.
Basically no one likes the hunt - it's political. You're quite right in your observations that it's not entirely about animal cruelty.
It's slightly worrying that laws get passed on this basis, for example we could end up with capital punishment being re-introduced if it was a free vote.
But anyway, most of the public still see the hunt as 'the unspeakable chasing the inedible'!
What reason have you got to report it Stan because the hounds did not hunt the fox to ground. They were hunting a trail that went through a wood. In that wood was an earth and as hounds passed they marked a fox. It was on a game shoot and so to protect the game birds a terrier was used to bolt the fox into a net whereafter it was shot.
All photographed and witnessed by the police.
Trust me - it will never get to court. As for me - well I was only watching hounds pursuing a trail not a fox. No breach of the law there.
Spin it how you like it was all totally legal and your precious ban is a laughing stock.
Countrysider I think you have shot one of the pro-hunting arguments down in flames yourself.
I was under the impression the rural economy would be devestated, thousands of hounds would be put down, you wouldn't be able to ride your horses ever again and traditional meets were gone for ever.
Well, it seems not. Every broadsheet newspaper has plenty of pictures of the hunts out accross the country, in your own words there was a hunt within the law.
So what about the predicions of doom for the countryside - can't see it myself!
Spot on Chris its political its not about animal welfare. This can be seen by the voting patterns on this, and the views of some of the bigots who post on here. Tories in general against the ban, labour for, liberals split right down the middle.
And as I’ve said, I don’t hunt, never have, never wanted to, I just believe in freedom. Your point about capital punishment is valid, if parliament listened to the masses we’d have it back. God help us if that ever happened, you can’t bring someone back once hung, but you can always let a falsely imprisoned person out. And I wouldn’t say the majority are against hunting, the majority couldn’t give a stuff. How many of those polled on hunting say “Oh yeah its so cruel, ban it� and then go home and stuff their faces with a pork sausage or with a chicken or turkey that have lived all their lives in a crowded hell? So no its not about cruelty its political bigotry no more no less.
Utter rubbish. Anne Widdecombe suddenly flying the red flag is she? Are the 70% of the uk population who disagree with hunting all loony lefties? I'm a Tory, do I suddenly become a labour supporter due to my contempt of the sick sadism of hunting? What rot!
Another attempt by the hunt scum to justify their cruelty by diverting attention from it's true nature.
So you believe in freedom do you Brew? So should paedophiles be free to abuse, should racists be free to discriminate, should the animal welfare crowd be free to burn your place of work down?
The civilisation of a country is measured by the way that it regulates freedom to protect the vulnerable.
I said "Tories in general against the ban, labour for, liberals split right down the middle." THE WORDS IN GENERAL are the important ones, Anne Widdecombe might be a mad old boot, but I didn’t say she was a loony lefty, I’m just making a point that IN GENERAL it is the left (for class reasons) who are for this ban.
And where do you get this 70% figure? The polls, like the politicians, are pretty split on this matter, depending on who commissions the poll. I think the important polls are the ones which rank how big an issue hunting is, most people don’t give a stuff.
There are politics and party politics. My main pleasure in this ban is the boot is now on the other foot. Also the hunt are generally an arrogant, ill tempered, self-righteous, obnoxious bunch who claim sole ownership of the countryside. This I beleive is the major driving force behind the high level of Labour support for the bill.
Let's face it, I don't think any government would (rightly or wrongly) stir up a hornets nest like this over an animal rights issue. (give me some examples if you disagree)
On the one hand I'm happy this bill has been passed BUT at a deeper, constitutional level it's the thin of the wedge. If you don't like it ban it.
Also the hunt are generally an arrogant, ill tempered, self-righteous, obnoxious bunch. A claim you could also level at the great unwashed that are hunt sabs/animal rights loons.
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