Stronger together?

Hunting people are loyal to their packs and can react with horror to the idea of amalgamation. Tessa Waugh discovers how it works in the right circumstances

- Edited by Catherine Austen [e-mail] @cfausten123

FOR hunting people, the British Isles are made up of a web of hunting countries, each with their own unique character and culture. The people involved are fiercely loyal to their tribe and rivalries between neighbours are not uncommon. It can come as a shock when modernising hunt officials start considering the value of an amalgamation.

These happy, and some less so, marriages have taken place through history for the same reasons that they do today, mainly reduced country and financial pressures. In some ways, the arguments for these arrangements represent a classic case of head versus heart. On paper, combining forces ticks all the boxes for a secure future, but the situation requires careful handling to get, and keep, everyone on board.

Tim Easby was involved in several of these discussions during his time as director of the Masters of Foxhounds Association and The Hunting Office, some of which resulted in amalgamation and some which did not.

“Something our opponents will never understand is the sense of belonging that people have about their hunt countries,” he says. “People care deeply about their country and their hounds and this is why hunting has survived for as long as it has.

“At the same time, you have to face reality,” he cautions.

Tim recalls several occasions where talks foundered at the last minute.

“You would get two packs to the altar and someone from 1903 would stand up and say, ‘Over my dead body,’ and everything would fall apart. There were parallels in the Army when regiments amalgamated – you would get the officers who, after the event, wouldn’t speak to people in the other regiment.”

Tim is now chairman of the newly amalgamated York North and West of Yore.