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from Cathy (cathyvpreece@aol.com)

In at the kill as the hunt rides into town

Stephen Moss makes it to London after four days on horseback

Sunday September 22 2002

The Observer

Andrew German, who led the four-day South and West Wilts hunt's ride into London, had injured himself. Not on the ride, but by walking into a taxi door at 5am after a night of pre-march partying. The gash on the crown of his head seemed to confirm his suspicion about London.

The last leg of the journey from Dorset had taken us from Leatherhead to Wimbledon. As we came in on Saturday morning, Ashtead was asleep, Epsom supportive, Morden suspicious. We stopped for lunch at a drive (or, in this case, ride) through McDonalds, where children patted the horses and the manager fretted about his car park. When the country comes to town things can get messy.

We reached Wimbledon just after 2pm and were greeted by a piper, a small group of Countryside Alliance supporters and several TV crews. One of the greeters was the senior master of foxhounds in the US, who had brought across 200 hunting supporters for the march. "This is the frontline," he said. "If hunting is banned here we will be next."

Despite his cut - and lack of sleep - Mr German was at Hyde Park Corner, where the Liberty half of the march began, at 10am yesterday. He wasn't wearing his hunting regalia; no one was: the organisers evidently felt that massed red jackets would send the wrong signal.

It was reckoned to be the biggest protest in London since the Chartists assembled at Kennington in 1848; it was certainly the largest number of people with shooting sticks to attend a demo. Police forces can rarely have had so little to fear. One elderly woman berated two teenage boys for pulling conkers off a tree. Violence seemed unlikely.

There were few anti-hunting demonstrators along the way, though the Urban Alliance had plastered stickers on the gates of the park. "Proof that incest leads to genetic malfunction," read one. Hard to chant but pleasingly witty.

Mr German was marching with his wife, his mother, and friends from the hunt. The march came to a standstill in Pall Mall and did a succession of Mexican waves for the other breed of clubbers on the balconies. A young Scottish soldier offered whisky from a hip flask and explained why he, against regulations, had come along. "It's the thin end of the wedge. It'll be shooting and fishing next. Then what are people in the country supposed to do? Sit around drinking cups of tea?"

As we reached Parliament Square, Mr German said he felt he had achieved what he set out to do: to take his cause from his home at the kennels in Motcombe to the door of parliament.

This morning, he resumes hunting in earnest; he regretted the days he had to miss to make his point. This afternoon, he will take the hounds to the funeral of a hunt member who died of cancer at 38. It was her last wish that she be buried to the sound of their yelps. Hunting knows how to deal with any death - except of course its own.

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited

To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk

(posted 7858 days ago)

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