David Anker

This “cheerful and positive” man had an impressive 44-year career at the sharp end of hunt service

- Frank Houghton Brown

IN his 80th year and as cheerful and positive as ever, David Anker is still a regular car-follower with several North Yorkshire packs. He retired from hunt service at the age of 59 and moved to a house that he and his wife Norma had built on some land of hers in the Cleveland hunt country at Moorsholm, on the northern edge of the North Yorkshire Moors.

“I was brought up in the Ledbury country and I was offered my first job in hunt service by Nim Champion when I was 15 years old,” says David.

Nimrod Champion was the huntsman at the Ledbury, but David’s job would have been in the stables with no hunting.

Cleveland so when he came down to visit, he offered me the job as his second whipper-in,” he relates.

David was at the Cleveland for eight seasons, where he met and married Norma, a local farmer’s daughter.