Make Smoke on a Boxing Day Hunt

My last update on this part of The Cotswolds described how we had left the woodland inhabitants their Winter Solstice banquet. This was in the guise of three wheelbarrowfuls of apples. The whole event was as enjoyable as always. The satisfaction for me is when you see the eagerness in which the gift is devoured, you know then they are taking steps to preserve their present condition that will take them ever nearer to the following spring. Who can forget the spring of 2013?  One of the coldest of the last 100 years.  Everything the wildlife depended on was late, ridiculously late and that was largely the reason why hedgehog numbers as well as door mice were so very down on previous years due to the fact, as they came out of hibernation their early spring diets were over a month late. A door mouse, just like the hedgehog needs to gain condition rapidly just after their hibernation if they are to survive.  Badger numbers were also down due to the cold spring.  The sow has her cubs’ middle of February.  The diet of worms and other such delights were still frozen into the ground.  A lot of cubs perished in their sett. 

But all that to one side, the summer of 2013 was one of the best for wildlife in all categories that we have seen for many a year. 

While we were distributing the apples I learnt from the Coopers that there was to be a large Boxing Day hunt in countryside that had not been hunted for many years, and an old fox, a family friend had become quite blasé with his toing and froing up and around Beech Wyn with the badgers.  He was known as Dini, his name of which had been passed down from his grandfather to his father and then to him.  This name had come about due to many a cunning act and stories of escape you would never believe, just like the great magician escape artiste, Houdini, hence the name. 

Christmas was coming at us at a pace.  Without doubt my favourite time of the year.  My family, like most families thoroughly enjoy Christmas and everything to do with it. 

The morning of the 22^nd December, after my camp out on the Winter Solstice with the badgers was busy, busy, busy.  The Coopers kicked the morning off with a telephone call asking how they could be of assistance in the protection of Dini, for they too knew him as well as I did.  I asked if they could pop round and meet me at Beech Wyn at 3 that afternoon.  That would then give me the hours in between to ring a few people and get evermore ready for Christmas with the family.  I then rang Nimrod, Lord Foxton’s gamekeeper who was a lifelong friend and also Conrad who was also a gamekeeper and one of my old school chums.  From Nimrod I wanted his snow chains and from Conrad I wanted his telescope as he had got increasingly more interested in the cosmos.  It must be a thing that comes with age as he showed very little interest in it when we were kids to my recollection.  I asked them to bring the items to the house for 12 noon. 

Jackie and the kids had gone to Cheltenham to do some more Christmas shopping, (my presents I think).

A couple of hours before 12 I drove up to my hedge laying programme where I picked up a land rover full of cordwood and branches.  I got four loads in total.  I put two loads down at the start of The Horn on the one side of the valley and the other two loads directly opposite two hundred yards apart, just as the gradient starts to rise. The Horn is a long valley that is wide one end and then narrows at the other. I then hastily got back to my house for 12 noon.   Nimrod and Conrad were both waiting.  As I got out of the land rover I was greeted with, “what on earth do you want snow chains for? Asked a puzzled Nimrod. “We’re not expecting any snow.”

“I could have understood it if it was armbands,” chuckled Conrad.

“All in good time, have a little patience. Now then Conrad, show me how to use this thing in daylight,” I asked reaching for his telescope.  It looked rather a sophisticated piece of kit.  Conrad then went through the dos and don’ts and made me promise him that if I damaged it I would have to replace it.  I invited them both into the house and gave them each a glass of cider. After some more light banter the talk then soon got round to the forthcoming Boxing Day hunt.  “It’s going to be a big one,” explained Nimrod.  “They are all meeting at his Lordship’s and there are a lot of foot soldiers for the Tory party who have been working tirelessly these last couple of years to get the hunting ban overturned.”

“Is his Lord and Ladyship and Antonio hunting?”

“No, however they will be there to greet all the hunting folk with the customary glass of sherry, they are, after all, the hosts. Since Antonio’s hunting accident, none of them have hunted at all.” 

Then a surprised Conrad, five minutes late as normal asked. “What do you mean, show me how this goes in daylight? It’s a telescope used to look at the moon and the stars.”

“It’s a tool for viewing distance, that’s what I need it for.” I replied. 

As we finished off our cider I found myself looking at their shiny land rovers, both long wheel bases. “One more thing chaps, I would like you to do another favour for me.  Fill your land rovers full of leaves, really pack them in tight as I want a good load and drive off down to the entrance of The Horn, five hundred yards in you will see two heaps of wood opposite one another, two hundred yards apart, both of them just starting on the gradient of the bank.  Each put your load of leaves on the pile of wood, pack them tight and thick. 

“Allan, what is this all about?” asked Nimrod looking serious.

“Yes, Al, what are we getting ourselves into?” asked Conrad nervously.

“Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies,” I replied tapping my nose.

“That’s all well and good but this hunt is around our beat. We can’t be seen to be interfering with it in any way. This is our jobs at stake.”

“Look, it’s simple, you are both gamekeepers, you look after woodlands, fill your land rovers full of leaves and distribute your cargo at night, under darkness. You will be no part of it.”

“Yeah, right, just like when we were kids.  Whenever we got involved with you it was trouble. But we can’t afford any trouble with these, you’re messing with the big leagues now Allan.”

“Trust me and do as I ask.”

They both left. Not quite as smiley as when they first arrived I didn’t think but I never had the slightest doubt that my request wouldn’t be answered, for these were my friends from the old school when your word was your bond. 

Soon it was 3pm and it was the time for the meeting with the Coopers up at Beech Wyn.  By the time I got there it was raining and the wind was blowing, it was downright miserable.  The Coopers were already there stood by their invalidity buggy sheltering by the side of the girth of the big beech trunk shielding themselves from the rain and the wind looking pretty down mouthed which wasn’t solely due to the weather. “Our badgers,” she said, “I don’t want a load of hounds marauding around our badger sett.”

“None of us do.”  The leaves had long dropped from the trees and you could now see the vastness of The Tiger forest up through Beech Wyn. “Natalya would turn in her grave,” said Mrs Cooper “for it was never to be hunted.”  

Legend has it that the young banished princess who had made her home in The Cotswolds with the Abrahams had once been gifted an Arctic fox fur coat from the Tsar of Russia which she had spattered in red ink and protested in Red Square in Moscow and through the streets of St Petersburg to protect the Arctic fox and try and bring awareness as early as 1900 of the fragility of such wildlife. By the way, The name Red Square is nothing to do with the colour red or communism, it simply means beautiful, just like Natalya who was years ahead of her time. 

Although Beech Wyn was out of the jurisdiction of any hunt, it was private woodland, but stray hounds and huntsmen cross boundaries onto private land all the time and we just couldn’t risk anybody stumbling across our badger sett. Operation Mozart’s Magic Flute depended on the utmost secrecy.  “This is for you Mr Cooper, look after it, it isn’t mine, I know you will be able to use it,” I said handing him over the precious telescope of Conrad’s.

Although the weather at this stage was pouring with rain and the wind nearly gale force, Mrs Cooper, now with the handing over of the telescope knew there was a plan of intent and you could see her excitement building.   “What’s you plan Allan? The hunt is definitely taking in part of The Horn and The Tiger, and looking at Dini, although he looks well, he is getting on in years and once flushed out he won’t have a prayer.”

“I know that,” I replied.  I then started to explain to them what I wanted them both to do on the morning of the 26^th December.  “The hunt is meeting at Lord Foxton’s at 11am and by the time they have all had their glass of sherry it will be 11:30am before they are on their way. I don’t know at this stage what time they will get to The Horn and I want you to ride up on your buggy to Deer Furlong, that is nearly two mile away from The Horn but that’s the way they will come.  But to start with I will drop off a hessian sack on the boundary of Beech Wyn that stinks of Dini’s territory markings that I want you to pick up and drag behind your buggy just to add a little more confusion into the mix. Once you are a mile away from Beech Wyn trail the sack from behind your buggy to Deer Furlong.  Scent that appears from nowhere and leads nowhere drives hounds mad. Once at Deer Furlong set up the telescope and phone me the minute you see the first hound or rider.”

“But what’s the plan? This is all very well Allan, but what is your plan?”  Mr Cooper was getting quite frustrated. 

“The plan is from the War of the Atlantic.  As the British destroyers protected the convoys that were coming to our aid from America in 1941, when the lethal U-boats were prowling The Atlantic looking to send any ship to the bottom of the sea that moved,  the order went out ‘Make smoke.’ They tried to make themselves invisible across the lucrative hunting grounds of The Atlantic and that quite simply is my plan, but we need the right weather,” which was out of my control. 

We went over the plan another two or three times, hugged each other. They then left on their invalidity buggy and they were soon on their way back to their warm, dry cottage.  I got home just as Jackie and the kids arrived back from the shopping in Cheltenham. 

Christmas Eve was as magical to me as every Christmas before.  The smiling faces of my children in anticipation of what their presents might be, my wife singing along to the Christmas hits of yesteryear, mainly the 70’s and 80’s  while preparing the food for the best dinner of the year, Christmas dinner.  The Christmas Eve Carol service galvanised the Christmas spirit.  Christmas Eve effortlessly slipped into Christmas day and a fantastic day was had by all. 

Bedtime had come and two very tired kids and an exhausted mum made their way up the wooden hill to bed.  I had one last job to do.  I left the house, got in my land rover and drove down to Beech Wyn.  I backed the land rover up to the wall of Beech Wyn and chucked a road kill pheasant into the back of it for bait.  I let the tailgate down on my land rover and sprung the steel mesh flap ready to greet Dini, I felt sure that he would come because at least twice a week along the winter months I would leave some road kill, wildlife road victim for him to get his teeth into.  I waited 100 yards from the land rover, the time was probably half past one in the morning.  And whack! I heard the trap spring.  As I got to the back of the land rover Dini was there, pheasant in mouth looking quite unperturbed.  “You are going to have to stay in there for a bit now boy.”  I then drove home with my new passenger.

Boxing Day morning duly arrived and the weather was absolutely perfect.  Foggy and still.  Perfect for a hunting scent but far from perfect for a hunting view. The Coopers were going to find it difficult to give me much warning unless this fog lifted.  I went outside checking on Dini who seemed to be quite comfortable in his new lodgings. I refilled his water bowl which he had turned over in the night.  He had reduced the pheasant to a few handfuls of feathers and was looking really quite content.   I then went in for breakfast where the rest of the family was tucking into theirs. I gulped down my last mouthful of tea and went back out and started to attach Nimrod’s snow chains to the wheels of my land rover.  “What on earth are you doing that for?  We’re not expecting any snow,” asked Jackie and my two children.

“No, there’s not going to be any snow, but I might need a bit more extra grip a little later on.”

“Where are you going? What are you doing?” asked Jackie.

“I’ve just got a little job down at the badger sett.”

“You’re not interfering with the hunt are you Allan?”

“Of course not, I’ve got a bit of burning up to do from my hedge laying project.  I will be back for lunch.”  I drove away from home.  Dini had not been seen by Jackie or the kids so hopefully they did not suspect a thing. I made my way down to The Horn and there I started to doctor the heaps of wood which were now covered in leaves.  Nimrod and Conrad had done a first class job.  This was ideal.  I started to scoop my way into the middle of the timber through the leaves where I placed half an old duvet which I had brought from home.  I soaked the duvet with half a gallon of diesel and repeated the same procedure on the opposite heap of wood.  The two halves of duvet were marinating nicely in the diesel in the middle of these two piles of timber.  The plan was primed, I looked at Dini.  “Don’t worry old friend, I have got a feeling that this is going to get rougher before it gets smoother.” He just looked out at me, I could just see the end of his pink tongue between his upper and lower front teeth.  “That’s got to mean something,” I thought, but for the life of me I didn’t know what.  The time now was twenty five to twelve.  My phone rang, “yes,” I quickly answered.  It was Nimrod,

“The hunt has just left Lord Foxton’s and Allan, it is a big one.”

“Thanks Nimrod,” soon all was silent.  Periodically I could hear the hounds making tongue but they were still a long way away.  The wait was getting quite laborious and tiring.  Now Dini was starting to get fractious.  He was creating quite a lot of noise in the back of the land rover.  “They’re getting closer,” I thought.  Dini could hear them and he could sense them.  He was now starting to act like a caged animal.  His calmness had been replaced with an anxiety and as I watched him he was very slightly trembling.  “They are near, come on Mr and Mrs Cooper,” and then my phone rang.  A scream on the other end, “Make smoke, make smoke, they’re on us,” yelled the Coopers.  I quickly picked up the small can of petrol and doused the diesel marinated old duvet.  I threw in a match, whoosh! Was the noise.  It had ignited instantly.  I ran over to the other marinated duvet and did the same.  Whoosh! Went the other one.  I pushed all the leaves back over the timber.  Now the fires were both belching smoke.  Thick bonfire smoke.  My phone went again.  With dirty hands I fumbled to slide my soiled fingers across the face of the phone.  “Get out of there, get out of there,” screamed Conrad, “There’s another lot coming down from the opposite end of The Horn.”

“Thanks,” and with that I jumped into the land rover.  This was my worst nightmare.  Any fox in The Horn did not have a chance.  This was a pincer movement.  I looked up to the far bank of The Tiger.  It was a large Cotswold stone Obelisk also known as a Folly which had been put up by Natalya Abrahams after her husband’s death and she had called it ‘The Eye of The Tiger’, because from that point, the view of The Cotswolds seemed endless.  They say it was her favourite place on earth next to her beloved Russia.

I drove down The Horn turning my land rover towards the Obelisk, ‘The Eye of The Tiger’.  As I started to climb in my mirror I could see the shaking head of Dini.  As we ascended further I looked to my right and left.  The Horn was now full of smoke, absolutely thick.  This slope I was trying to scale was sheer.  This was absolute madness. Jackie and the kids would have had kittens if they had known what I was up to. Jackie had been with me years ago when we had climbed the great Plynlimon the highest point in the Cambrian Mountains in Mid Wales in a land rover. But I had climbed The Tiger once before in a land rover which no local had ever believed and it’s eerie beyond belief. 

I was half way up in low range and in second gear and the squally rain now started to fall. The wheels were still finding grip.  Then my worse fear, I came almost to a standstill.  I then turned the steering wheel left then right feeling for the tiniest of grip.  Holding my nerve I sat there moving ever steadily upwards. For a second or two I could have sworn I saw through the gloom on the precipice Natalya wearing her red ink spattered white Arctic Fox fur beckoning me ever closer.  Then the land rover started to slip back.  The bank was now wet, however, I was committed, I could not stop.  Then I did the biggest of no no’s in a four wheel drive vehicle. I turned on an angle, looking for that precious bite. This was as near to turning over as you can ever be.  Diff lock on full and with this dangerous angle the land rover found the edge of some bite.  I felt Dini was almost rocking to help gain us traction.  Then from almost nowhere, grip was found.  I straightened the land rover up towards ‘The Eye of The Tiger’.  The nearer I got to the top the more severe the slope but the dryer it became.  The land rover was now positively relishing the test, and with each half-slip wheel the victory was now looking assured to the land rover.  I came up over the top, I stopped and looked down, and the valley was still enveloped in thick smoke.  I could hear a distant horn. I got out my phone and saw that I had two missed calls, both from the Coopers.  Then my phone rang whilst I was holding it.  Again it was the Coopers.  “Where are you, where are you?  We can’t see a thing.  The Horn is thick with smoke but the whole hunt and the hounds are down in amongst it somewhere.  Please say you are not in The Horn. Are you safe?”

“I am very safe. I am delivering a present to Natalya. Thanks for everything you have done today. Now make your way home.” I looked down into a smoke filled Horn.  Visibility was down to about 15 meters. I opened the back of the land rover and Dini leapt out at a break neck speed and jumped up on to the Cotswold stone memorial. It was as if Dini had learnt all about Natalya also. 

As I left I couldn’t help but smile, Natalya would have been overjoyed.  If there was ever a day’s hunt that was ruined, it was this one.

Bonfire of leaves creates an impregnable screen masking vision almost completely.

A Badgers’ Bastion on the Winter Solstice

Another Winter Solstice.  The time of year to reflect and count one’s blessings.  This morning I was up well before dawn to sort out my contribution to the woodland’s inhabitants for this year’s Winter Solstice. The weather was atrocious, squally rain was being delivered wave after wave and the wind was unsettling as it gusted round about the apples I had stored for this occasion, in the shed. They had kept well from this autumn’s harvest. I loaded them into the wheel barrow and wheeled them to the Land Rover, three barrows full in all, leaving another three barrows in the shed store for the snow in January. Once I had loaded the apples, I sorted out my small tent and Captain Scott stove and, as I bundled them into the back of the Land Rover with the apples, a strange excitement started to creep up inside of me, the same excitement that I experience every year with the Summer and Winter Solstice.  I could hardly wait for night.

My school days were blighted with truancy. I drove my parents to despair as I would always sooner fish or go rabbiting, anything bar being inside. The weather to me not mattering what it was doing as I always looked upon it as more of a friend than an enemy.  I adored the elements and although, I never made any great shakes of myself, I have been blessed with happiness which is due to no small part to nature and the majesty and magic to be found within it. 

When my children were growing up and I had endeavoured to show them all the wonders that had captivated me when I was their age, I liked to hear nothing more than “you’re amazing dad,” as they held a young leveret or an injured roe deer.  A love of nature that they have grown up with and I feel sure will last with them a life time.

Jackie shouted out of the back door, “the Coopers want to be with you when you deliver the apples, they’re on their way over.”

“Ok I will be in soon,” was my reply.

Badgers are a member of the Mustelidae family which includes weasels, pine martins, stoats and otters.  Their territory is normally 1km square, give or take, depending on how plentiful the food supply is.  The thing that baffled me as a kid was that I used to see badgers (and still do now) mate pretty much all through the year but their cubs are always born at the same time normally within the first two weeks of February.  This is down to a process called ‘delayed implantation.’ The fertilised egg does not implant in the womb and does not develop until late October/ early November. Gestation is around 12 weeks and litters consist normally of 2 to 3 cubs. The Winter Solstice is a time to energise, not just the badger, but all natures’ wonders for the gruelling time ahead. Winter will show no mercy, pregnant or otherwise.

The Coopers duly arrived.  As I fought my way into the kitchen through the door, which the roaring wind was doing its level best to rip off its hinges, I was greeted with two very stern looking faces.  “Why the glumness?” I asked.

“The Boxing Day hunt is taking in The Horn and part of The Tiger forest.”  My face, I’m sure, was as glum looking as theirs once these words had passed their lips.  This land hadn’t been hunted for many years, certainly not since the banning of foxhunting under the last Labour government.  This was very near Beech Wyn and although the badgers there would be safe enough, Dini, the fox was the problem as he was lately spending all of his time with the badgers up around the sett. 

As we drank the last of our tea Jackie put the question to the Coopers. “Could you have a word with Lord Foxton?”

“We have,” they both replied, “and he’s of the mind, each to their own and there are higher authorities than himself that want the Boxing Day hunt around this part of the Cotswolds. 

“There are drinks tonight at our cottage, can you make it?” asked the Coopers looking at both myself and Jackie.

“Oh that’s a shame, why didn’t you ask sooner?  We have accepted a drinks invitation down in the village.”

As Jackie and the Coopers chit chatted, my sole narrative was about Dini and my mind was going forty to the dozen on just how we were going to overcome this awful situation. 

“Let’s get off then,” I said.  I got the Coopers up into the Land Rover and we were soon dispersing the apples around Beech Wyn.  As I was putting up my tent in gale force winds, the Coopers hammered in the pegs and chuntered on all the time about how they weren’t allowed to stay outside in a tent, and yet here they were helping to put one up for me.  They would have given anything to be out with me, up with the badgers on the Winter Solstice but age was their greatest leveller and they realised it was far too wet and cold for them and no longer pursued it. We made everything good and safe.  I put the Captain Scott stove into the tent along with the kettle and teabags and I was now working on my excuses for the drinks party on how I could leave early. 

Howling wind rocked the assembled tent as we all looked around the badger sett. The Coopers asked if I still saw as much of Dini now that all the leaves had fallen.

“I see him every day,” I replied.

“It’s a darn nuisance they are hunting The Horn and part of The Tiger after all of these years. Do you think they will flush Dini out?”

“I’d lay money on it.  He’s been up here a number of years now so the scent is strong, but my overriding concern is this Badger Bastion.  It must be kept secret, nobody must know of its whereabouts.”

“Quite, quite,” agreed the Coopers.  “Have you any ideas for Boxing Day?”

“I’ve got one contingency plan for just such an occasion, but I will need your help to implement it.”

“Anything, anything at all Allan,” responded the Coopers enthusiastically, pleased that they were being involved in some small way.  “I will give you a ring with the finer details.”

“How exciting,” they were just like two big kids, but with them being on my side, I felt that I could do anything.

We were soon back in the Land Rover heading for home.  I dropped them off at their cottage, apologised to them on not being able to make their drinks party, but we would get together for a drink over the Christmas period.   This seemed to please them no end.

Once home, a quick change and off Jackie and myself with the kids down to Cheltenham for a spot of Christmas shopping.  A quick calculation at the number of people and the amount of parcels they were carrying, the country’s month of December GDP was certainly going to be up.  George Osborne’s economic predictions looked to be bearing fruit.  Cheltenham was a hive of activity, buzzing with the Christmas spirit.  It was a delightful day. 

Once home the talk was now of tonight’s drinks party. 7:30pm and we were toddling down to the village in the dark, stars shining brightly in the sky in abundance but the wind was still strong.  As we looked back to our house, the Christmas lights were being pounded against the side of the house.  We felt that the lights were getting ever nearer to destruction with each raging force of wind.  Soon we were in the throng of people at the drinks party.  Talk was of Christmas, on the children’s university and college life and general well meaningness. By 9:30pm my thoughts were solely on the Winter Solstice and on the excuse that I was going to make to enable me to leave this merry group.  My thoughts were then answered in the form of the Coopers.  A night cap with them. No one would surely doubt that. 

Jackie and the kids knew where I would be this Winter Solstice, the same place where I have been on every Summer and Winter Solstice so far, out with nature counting my blessings. 

I thanked the host for their hospitality, wished everyone a happy Christmas, whispered to Jackie and the kids that I would see them in the morning and I was soon making my way up the hill towards home.  Once home I changed again into my outdoor clothes and picking up a can of cider to toast my beloved badgers I was soon on my way out and within a few minutes I was walking across the fields, down alongside the hedgerows on my way to my vacant tent up at the badger sett.  The wind was blowing hard, the rain was the same squally rain that was present this morning while we were dispersing the apples.  Although the weather was anything but good, I knew that I was out on the Solstice.  The shortest day, the same as the June longest day, there is something so very special and humbling about a Solstice night. 

Once into Beech Wyn, I made my way through the Beech and Ash trees to my tent which was weathering the storm very well indeed, it was still up anyway.  There were a couple of badgers out and about along with a couple of Roe deer and a munkjack who had found the apples.  I struck up the Captain Scott’s stove and put the kettle on.  The kettle was soon whistling.  A cup of tea is a most settling, satisfying drink.  The wind was roaring outside the tent, rippling the canvas and at times making a sharp smacking noise.  As I sat inside the tent thinking about the forth coming Boxing Day hunt my mind went back to the summer, the day Mozart’s Magic Flute was born.  A day of torrential rain and I could still hear the mauling groans of the bobcat as it pushed these boulders into position into this bank using nature’s hard elements with the sole aim of trying to protect a most delicate, fragile eco system.  The success was beyond my wildest dreams. Quite an impregnable fortress from my biggest badger fear; badger baiters.  It is said by people who know far more than I that approximately forty five thousand badgers are killed every year on our roads and eight to nine thousand badgers are killed by badger baiters.  These numbers fill me with horror and disgust in equal measures.   The time quickly moved on it was two minutes to midnight.  I took my can of cider and left the snugness of the tent.  I was soon being attacked by the wind and the squally, showery rain which had now progressed into a more business like rain, purposeful, deliberate driving rain.  The type of rain that, if you let it, gets into your bones.  And then from behind one of the boulders along came Old Daddy Cool with one of his cubs from this year.  On seeing him I raised my drink, “To your health old friend, you have done so well to get your family to this Winter Solstice.  I look forward to toasting you again next year on the Summer Solstice.”

I looked at the cub that was with him, he looked nice and plump and round.  The most difficult time for a badger is its first winter, but Daddy Cool and his missus had done their cubs well.  Their territory was a good one, it had served them all with plenty, but when you hear the disturbing news by Defra that there will be a further four years of this brutal badger cull I can’t help thinking that times are going to get harder and my work spent in the summer creating this Badger Bastion is one of the best jobs I have ever done.

  

A supplement to the diet of the woodland inhabitants, birds, squirrels, rabbits, deer, munkjack and badgers.

Your Health Daddy Cool on the Winter Solstice

The Winter Solstice, December 21^st the shortest day of the year when up at the sett, I will raise a glass and toast the badgers “All the very best,” and wish them all a warm and peaceful winter.  

Days after the solstice get very slowly, a tad longer, and although the weather gets decidedly colder, each passing day the thought of spring edges that little bit closer and more young badgers (hopefully).

The NFU tweeted recently that Dorset Wildlife was being very naïve with their vaccination programme and would cause unnecessary suffering and would basically be of no benefit to the badger whatsoever.  What I find difficult to understand is that nearly all diseases are combatted through vaccines, so why the NFU is so anti-vaccine in the case of TB in badgers is beyond me.

Surely it must be a better policy to try and sort the disease out in a living animal rather than to have to aniolate the species. 

We have seen many instances during this summer where badgers have been shot in a very adhoc, often in a totally mismanaged fashion.  Bodies of dead badgers have not been tested for TB which in itself is a very straight forward procedure, just requiring a small sample of blood from the animal. 

Although the majority of the scientific evidence tells us over a period of time, to tackle the Bovine TB in this way is futile, unbeneficial to the animal and the countryside and to add insult to injury, as many as 80% of the badgers that have been shot have probably been TB free.  It is a scatter gun approach, a sledge hammer to crack a hazelnut. It seems now that you can barely pick up a newspaper without reading how the government can’t wait to roll out this policy in other counties with methods of killing that don’t bare thinking about, these include, gassing and snaring.  A badger caught in a snare will torture himself all through the night trying to release himself of it resulting in a very slow, horrific death. 

The gassing of a sett is totally indiscriminate.  It kills every badger within that sett and the saddest thing to me about this whole gruesome situation is that this animal really deserved the ‘Protected status’ because in a roundabout way having had it removed, baiting badgers and all other cruelty towards them is nowhere near as taboo as it was before the cull started. For the badger, it has become a nightmare and you can only wish and hope that the government sees sense before rolling this slaughter out into other counties. 

My film is in two parts.  The first small part is of Daddy Cool and the second part is a film taken earlier of his family together.  He has done well to get them to this winter solstice and with the help of the protection programme, ‘Mozart’s Magic Flute’, I am going to do my damndest to make sure I  am able to raise a glass to him on the next Summer Solstice.

Please watch my short film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqq6OrqwQmA&feature=youtube_gdata

Daddy Cool. I wish him and his family all the very, very best.

A Slap with No Tickle

It is once again the time of year when Christmas parties and seasonal drinks gatherings that makes this time of year so special and Friday night at my wife’s Christmas party was no exception.  As I watched her chatty and smiley with her work colleagues my mind was drawn back to the Christmas parties of years gone by. 

My earliest Christmas parties were at my local primary school where the Christmas excitement would start to manifest in the shape of a wooden box full of small Christmassy shapes.  Christmas trees, bells, icicles and snowflakes.  These were the shapes that us kids would draw around as we started to make our own sheet of Christmas paper which our present from Santa was going to be wrapped in.  The care taken with these sheets, which in a month would all create their own magic moment, was being done in amongst total silence and endeavour.  Each child working in their own utter most creative elation in an atmosphere of spell bounding bliss.  The excitement and magic of those feelings has never left me, for in those days, Christmas was the only time of year when you received a present.  Birthdays never resulted in birthday parties or gifts.

The small Cotswold towns round about including Cirencester, Cheltenham and Oxford would organise their turning on of their Christmas lights and they would always be turned on by the biggest celebrity of Christmas, Santa Clause himself and to be honest, a tad of that Christmas magic has long been lost over the past twenty five years or so on the wheeling in of some random celebrity that no kid has ever heard of to kick off the season that means so much to most fun loving people.  The end of a hard year, the time to reflect on the fortunes of your own family when you haven’t got to look very far in any direction to see someone much worse off than yourself.  The time of year to be happy, to give and to receive in the gracious festive manner that only Christmas can bring out, and only Christmas can generate such good will and generosity that no other time of the year comes near in matching. 

When the Christmas paper was completed it was gathered up by the teachers and put into the big ‘no go’ cupboard where each present for each child given by the school would then be wrapped in their own personalised Christmas paper.  Next, the teachers would organise a Santa Clause and the one that seemed to be their favourite was Ben Hatchett, an old woodman who seemed to us kids to be absolutely ancient.  His movement was slow, his speech was slow and he just looked very, very old, but having said all that, he was a great Santa Clause.

This particular year for whatever reason, the teachers had decided that it would be a great idea to enhance the Christmas experience by letting Ben breeze up to the school on an old pony and trap.  The trap was to be decked out as near as possible to resemble a sleigh, and it just so happened that old Ben had a pony that looked even older than he did. 

Ben loved horses and ponies.  He was one of the last people in the Cotswolds to fell and then haul out the timber with Shire horses and he loved nothing better than showing us kids his old cross cut saws and his pulling chain and some of the old photographs of him working his horses pulling out what looked to be two to three ton trunks with teams of two and four horses struck me as the most unbelievable power demonstration that I had ever seen.  For as far as Ben was concerned this was the real phrase and the real meaning of horse power.  

I had been picked along with another kid Conrad, one of my school chums to be Santa’s helpers on the day of the Christmas party and our job was to go down and wait at the end of the lane to meet Santa Clause and then walk back up with him to the school where the teachers and all the kids were waiting to give him a rapturous welcome.  The day of the party, which when we were making our Christmas paper seemed a lifetime away, eventually came and Conrad and I waited in our allotted place wearing our green and red costumes.  While we waited the costumes had triggered off a roll play all of their own.  I was Robin Hood and Conrad being a bit rounder was Little John.  As we stood whacking each other’s stick we heard a clop, clop, clop.  Reading this you are probably thinking it should have been a clip clop, clip clop, but this was most definitely a clop with no clip.  We immediately stopped our roll play and threw aside our sticks just as Moses was turning into the lane.  I had nicknamed the pony Moses because of what seemed to be him and Ben’s biblical age and the glacier pace they both seemed to move in.  As they drew nearer, “Ho, ho, ho,” Santa cried as he came upon us.

 “Merry Christmas Santa,” shouted Conrad and myself jumping up and down waving.  Ben looked great as Santa Clause, the real deal. 

He sat in his ‘sleigh’ with a big hessian sack behind him. We then lead the way back to school.  The weather was cold but we were so full of the Christmas spirit we didn’t feel it.  The pace towards school seemed so unbelievably slow.  It was probably only four or five hundred yards but it seemed to be taking for ever.  I remember trying to quicken my step as I walked alongside Moses thinking this would make him go faster.  My impatience was almost uncontrollable.  I had to slow right down again, Moses had no intentions of trying to keep up with my pace.  Near enough was quick enough was the mood of the afternoon.  As we drew nearer we could hear the sound of the cheering kids.  “There’s Santa, come on Santa,” they called out.  The pace was deathly slow.  At the end of the lane there was a small pedestrian gate built into a three foot six Cotswold stone wall which opened into the school yard.  We were still a good two hundred and fifty yards away from the thronging crowd of school kids. The chants were now changing to “Hurry up Allan, hurry up Conrad,” Were we the ones slowing Santa down? I looked at Moses’ flank which was nice and shiny and seemed to be crying out for a good slap to liven him up.  The temptation was getting more and more unbearable, the rump of Moses seemed to be crying out ever more for a slap to spur him on his way.  As we got nearer, listening to Conrad’s moans and groans, “Come on, come on” and Ben’s total oblivion to the sense of time.  This was a fractious, anxious, excited and impatient situation and the school kids on the other side of the gate were now looking more like an unruly mob.   The teachers efforts of trying to keep these rowdy children in line could now be clearly heard. I could fight the temptation no more. I raised my hand and I slapped the sluggish rump of Moses.  This resulted in a sequence of events that has been talked about to this day.  It was as if I had unleashed a pack of starving wolves down from The Tundra.  Moses reared up on his hind legs and lurched forward with the acceleration of a Gazelle.  Ben was thrown back off his seat into the hessian sack of presents.  Within seconds Conrad and I was left in his wake.  Soon Ben and the ‘sleigh’ were hurtling head long towards the school.  Moses, I felt sure, still thought he was under attack from the Tundra wolves and he was heading straight for the pedestrian gate in the wall to the school yard.  Conrad and I put our hands to our faces for you could see that Moses would be able to get through the gate but the ‘sleigh’ could not.  Soon the sound of an almighty ‘whack’ could be heard as Moses’ aim was deliberate and true.  He had made it through the gateway but the ‘sleigh’s’ steel rimmed wheels were now imbedded in the Cotswold stone wall, one each side of the gateway.  Conrad and I were soon on the scene, Moses had been brought to his knees.  Ben started to abuse me with every four letter word he could lay his tongue to plus a few more.  The language was as colourful as the cheeks of the female primary school teachers listening to it. 

The reprimand was ginormous.  The lesson I learned was unquantifiable. Never try and rush great times for they are gone all too soon. 

Moses made a full recovery, Ben’s bruising had faded by Easter and I was given my present along with the other kids and the Christmas was as great and as magical as any Christmas before or since. The exuberance of youth along with the fragility of life gave us a lesson that we would never forget.

Old Ben's favourite horse, The Shire.

The Throne of Daddy Cool, The Lord Protector.

The Winter Solstice is getting ever nearer, the 21st December, the shortest day.  The behaviour of my badgers captivates my interest and sparks my amusement in equal measure.  An old ash stump that was named Daddy Cool's throne years ago is, as you can see, still very much a favourite place.  It sits on the Northern boundary of this particular parcel of Cotswold woodland and Daddy Cool loves to climb up on it and survey the woodland around him and the valley that opens out in front of him to the North.
Many an evening I sit and watch, and you can't help but try and contemplate what he might be thinking as he lifts his head up towards the northern sky.  I feel sure that he is looking to the heavens in thanks of getting himself and his family this far and with the imminent, harsh weather approaching he seems to be making the most of his nightly jaunts to his favourite spot on the northern boundary, because soon the weather will not permit such luxuries.
A wildlife icon being put in such a position where he is regarded as fair game for any 'have a go charlie' the government should hang its head in shame.  I have not seen nor know of any animal that deals with nature better and rolls with its blows in a more gracious, noble, caring and kind manner.  The Lord Protector of our Woodlands really does need all the help he can get.

Watch our short film of Daddy Cool on his favourite spot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkGwgpcA3Qw&feature=youtube_gdata

Daddy Cool in his most favourite spot.

Shaking The Tail of The Tiger.

The iphone, my wife Jackie had gifted to the Coopers was proving to be as irritating as it was helpful.  Helpful in the respect that it was amazingly satisfying to know that the Coopers, if they were ever in any kind of trouble when they were out and about on their seemingly ‘go anywhere’ invalidity buggy was only a few touch numbers  away from help and the satisfaction of this seemed to please Jackie no end.  The downside of it was, you could receive anything up to 4 or 5 phone calls a day keeping you informed of anything or anyone, even the elements that they believed could affect the badger sett.  They were now so 21^st Century.  The Coopers were never without the iphone and arguably there was never a better gift more suited to the Badger Protection Programme than the iphone in the hands of two who absolutely adored the badgers.  That was by far the most overriding factor as far as I was concerned and outweighed the daily annoyance of scrambling to your phone with dirty hands only to hear some other triviality that was occurring in or around the badger sett. 

But as each conversation ended with the Coopers, from my point of view it always created a smile of amusement for they were the ‘lynch pins’ that was keeping The Badger Protection coherent from day to day.

Saturday morning, half past seven, still dark, I set out across to the badger sett to continue with the hedging programme I had started a couple of weeks earlier.  As I got nearer Beech Wyn I looked into the distant East and saw the sun just making its entry above The Tiger.  A sight I had seen a thousand times.  But each time I was struck in exactly the same way as when I was a five year old kid.  In awe of its magnificence, its beauty and its rawness.  One of the most natural sights that I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing or will ever witness. 

The Tiger was a forest of mainly hardwoods, Ash, Beech and Oak interspersed with a large range of softwoods. It had been named by a family named Abrahams. One of them had been an explorer chappy and on one of his explorations had met and fell in love with a Tsar’s Princess whose greatest passion was The Taiga Forest. As legend goes, her life’s ambition was to travel the length of The Taiga, the world’s largest terrestrial biome, and from a child my dream also. The Taiga Forest is situated between 50 degrees latitude North and The Arctic Circle.  The largest land habitat and northern zone of coniferous forests, evergreens with needles spreading right around the planet from Western Alaska to Eastern Siberia.  In North America it covers most of inland Canada and Alaska, through Europe most of Sweden, Finland, and much of Norway and Iceland, on to Russia, Mongolia and Northern Japan. However, before she was old enough to realise her dream along came the Russian revolution and she like most other nobles was having to flee for her life and so she escaped to England where she married the young explorer Abrahams and made the family estate her home.  A large belt of Cotswold woodland on the Abrahams’ estate was added to throughout their lifetime to make the glorious “Tiger Forest” what it is today.  A typical English name change or an after dinner joke, who knows? But the name stuck.

As I walked along towards my hedge, my gaze averted northwards to the extensive Cotswold valley that runs to The Tiger Forest, this is known as The Horn.  A valley with the most demanding slopes.  A rugged, hostile environment.  When I poached The Horn and The Tiger as a young lad there was something always amazingly eerie and spooky about them and I was always happy to get home after a night’s poaching.

Having been hedging for about ten minutes, Dini, the Fox made his appearance coming from the direction of the badger sett.  He had been spending ever more time around the badger sett which the Coopers too had noticed over the last couple of months.  He had been named Dini because his great grandfather was a notorious Cotswold Fox that had the knack of getting out of some very precarious and dangerous situations.  He was known as Houdini after the great magician escape artist. My own children had shortened it many years ago to Dini and now any fox around Beech Wyn is also known as Dini.

When my children were small my wife and myself would wrap four presents and put down in the old Wendy house which we had built down in the wood.  These were presents for Sophie and Sam from Daddy Cool the badger and Dini the fox, and I feel sure that is where my own children’s love of nature comes from.  They were always the first to fill up the bird table and feed the baby hedgehogs because in turn, they felt this would ensure the pleasing of Daddy Cool and Dini each festive season. 

Dini then passed by me at quite a lick, he had been spooked. I looked up to see a horse being ridden down the side of the hedge.  “Morning Allan, you’re making a good job of that.”

“Morning Napper, gorgeous morning.” I replied.

“It is that,”

“That’s a fine beast you’re on there.”

“A Cheltenham Festival prospect,” replied Napper proudly. “Can’t hang about, I’m just putting him through his paces up round The Tiger three times a week.” He gave the horse a quick flick with his riding crop and he was away.  As I watched him gallop off down the hedgerow, I couldn’t help but admire Napper.  All my life his dream had always been to have a winner at The Cheltenham Festival races meet.  Although he had got nowhere near it, I have never seen a man try harder.  I stood there with my dogs and we watched him drop down the valley of The Horn to the bottom side of The Tiger.  And as I watched him my mind went back to when I was a fourteen year old boy, when I had been honoured with the job of loading for Colonel Abrahams.  Colonel Abrahams shot right up until his early nineties.  He had a Land Rover made up with a 360 degree rotating seat in the back of a Land Rover pick up, and the day I loaded for him was to give me a memory that I will never forget.  It was the last shoot of the day the Blue Ribbon shoot. The Tiger.  The stands for the guns were placed in the bottom of the valley.  The beaters would start at the Northern boundary and push down through the wood flushing the birds out as they went.  By the time they came over this particular valley the birds were high, and for any of you that know anything about pheasant shooting, the higher the bird, the better the shoot.  The Tiger was far too vast to shoot all in one day so they would shoot a section of it along with other drives on the estate every week of the shooting season, which was from the middle of October to the middle of January.  I was on peg number 1 stood by the side of Colonel Abrahams’ Land Rover.  I was in for an education.  A shooter is known as a gun in shooting circles and each gun, meaning man, has two guns.  While one is being used, one is being loaded and on a good shoot the loader has to be quick. Handing a gun up loaded to someone sat in a seat in the back of a Land Rover is easier said than done, but I was young, I was keen and I was good at it.  The Colonel’s pair of guns were Purdy, made in Birmingham by the world’s finest gunsmiths and Purdy is without doubt the best shotguns in the world. 

There we stood one early December afternoon, the snow just starting to fall, frost thick on the ground, the beaters had started to beat through the wood.  It is always sometime before you hear the beaters movements until you see your first bird.  The anticipation of the guns is electrifying.  None more so than a day’s shoot on the infamous Tiger.  The Colonel sat in his chair with his blanket over his lap with his gun at the ready.  I stood by him with a bag of cartridges over my shoulder and a loaded gun ready to pass to the Colonel once he had discharged the weapon he was holding.  As I looked down the valley with apprehension. A pair of Labradors sat by each gun patiently waiting for their orders to go and retrieve the fallen birds.  The Colonel’s two Labradors sat by his Land Rover, Bill and Bess, their still, statue like stance almost ornamental in the now falling snow.  Then I shouted “Bird sir,” then it all kicked off.  The Colonel’s gun was up overhead whereupon he released his two cartridges, I passed the loaded gun nervously petrified that I was going to drop it, “Gun boy, Gun damn you,” shouted the impatient Colonel. Hand grasping for his replacement loaded gun.  This continued at a phonetic pace.  All the way down the valley the exercise was being repeated, there must have been twenty stands at least.  In amongst all this excitement of the loading and passing of guns and my determination not to drop and let the gun slip through my hands, the continual barking of instruction from The Colonel, I couldn’t make out whether he was having a fruitful shoot or a disappointing one, all I could glean was that these birds were flying out of The Tiger at an unbelievable height from where we were, down here in the valley.  Nonetheless there were an awful lot of birds that seemed to be getting away.  For this was shooting at its very, very best. If there is such a thing as a sporting chance then the birds that flew out of The Tiger definitely had one.  After ten minutes or so that seemed like an hour, the shooting had been that ferocious that the barrels of the guns when they were exchanged were getting extremely hot. The Colonel was kicking himself around in his chair to get that best shot and although he seemed a hell of an age he could still shoot. 

The drive was now coming to an end when the Colonel as I passed him the gun gave me a peremptory order, “Enough boy, now you have a go.”  I was dumbstruck. “Give me your bag of cartridges.”  The bag was almost empty, he had gone through nearly a bagful of cartridges.  The thought in my mind was as unbelievable then as is unbelievable now.  Old Colonel Abrahams’ was loading for me.  This action had me feel ten foot tall.  He then shouted, “Bird.”  My Purdy was up, I released both barrels, but the bird flew on.  We exchanged guns. I was shooting faster than the Colonel could load all to no avail as the birds were still flying on. I couldn’t manage to shake the tail of The Tiger.  The birds were so outrageously high.

The beaters appeared out of the woodland and the Labradors that had once been sitting so statue like had been given their orders to retrieve and were running all but which ways with pheasant laden mouths returning to their owners. The Colonel looked down as I was re-boxing the guns. “Not as easy as it looks is it boy?”  I had been humbled, but it was such an unbelievable thrilling experience.

 Although I have not shot for years, I look back on this memory with fondness.

The Red Kite in the sky stopped me from my daydreaming. My instructions from Jackie were that the Christmas decorations had to be finished today.

Our Christmas decorations did get done after the morning’s daydreaming and by the way the guy at the front gate with the red suit and white beard is a badger hugger.

Daddy Cool, You Can Climb If You Want To.

After the great news of last Friday, that the badger cull had been called off on the instruction of Natural England due to the targets not being reached, it seems inconceivable to me that if the targets are not being met and that has been the statement coming from the government throughout this badger cull debacle, then put quite simply, Defra has had its figures grossly exaggerated on the population of badgers right from the start.  And something as fundamental as culling a species on a wing and a prayer policy is not only immoral but outrageously dangerous to an animal species so strategically linked to a well balanced eco system.
The badger positively enhances any woodland that he occupies and as for getting in amongst their numbers with such a scatter gun, hair brained, devastating approach can only do damage that in my opinion is almost irreversible.  In my lifetime's experience of nature, I can say with a large degree of accuracy, that when a badger and sett are destroyed the badger rarely returns.  Contented setts are years in the making and destroyed in minutes.
All this policy has done is make life for the badger intolerable.  It has created open season on the badger to be killed and maimed as a lot of these morons see fit.  The badger cull policy is anti-wildlife, anti-democratic and will do nothing to curb Bovine TB in our herds.  But the most frightening thing of all is,  if the government continues with this folly, now with the talk of gassing, snaring and killing by whichever means is the proves to be most practical and efficient at the time, there will be large parts of our countryside where the British badger has been completely eradicated and we must all make sure that the badger does not follow the other wild icons that have long since been banished from these shores.
The British badger for centuries has been the hard man of the woods, but I fear now that the badger has never been more vulnerable and the Lord Protector of our woodlands needs all the help we can give.

Watch our short film of Daddy Cool with his family trying to climb trees.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcHmJ8Vdauk

General Winter Starts to Make His Move.

It has been quite an eventful week, culminating in the badger cull being called off by Natural England due to the badger cull targets not being met.  But, for whatever the reason, news of that magnitude has got to be celebrated. 

As I left for the badger sett this morning, Saturday 30^th November, I noticed there was a definite spring in my step.  The morning was cold, the light north wind veiled in a dampness, ever trying to creep into your bones.  As I walked passing the trees and hedgerows that were now bereft of leaves, the hawthorn and rosehips which were so much in evidence a few weeks ago were now almost stripped.  Nature had provided a banquet and the wildlife had had their fill.  Now, all wildlife were facing the biggest cull of them all, “General Winter” who will send his battalions out across The Cotswolds in a guise of wind, rain, sleet and snow who was now starting to flex his muscles and soon all British wildlife would be at his mercy. This was nature’s very own war of attrition and it was to be acted out this year like any other in all corners of our beautiful land. And by the end of this week the General will be ordering his penetrating North wind from the Arctic, his first move to soften up the wildlife within our lands. And none more vulnerable was the great Lord Protector of the woodlands himself, the badger.  A harsh, austere time was ahead.

As I looked around the sett, it was evident that the badgers were nowhere near as active.  This year like any other, the end of November, badgers tend to move about less.  The robin that had been with the badgers all year was perched in front of one of the entrances, his feathers all fluffed up looking really quite cheery.  His smugness apparent, almost in the knowledge that a picture of his name sake would be on every mantelpiece in every home across half of the world. Christmas was his time and it was just around the corner.  I was very fond of this little robin. For me, like so many other birds and animals throughout the woodland over this summer they have stayed with the badgers and their loyalty and their wanting to be a part of the badger protection has swelled my heart with pride.

The British badger lost out to the hedgehog on the favourite British Icon Award, but what the badger lost on the roundabouts has more than made up for on the swings.

I despatched a bagful of windfall apples from my garden around the woodland, the animals and birds find them a welcome addition to their now meagre diets. 

It is said that the winter of 1981 wiped out 50% of Britain’s small garden birds, so whatever help is given from what I have seen of it, is always gratefully received. 

 I strolled back from the badger sett, homeward bound, remembering the instructions from Jackie which were to put up the Christmas lights around the outside of the house, so that was to be the task once home.  A job I always loved doing with the kids when they were little with all their enthusiasm equally as much as I do now with all of their “I should do it like this dad,” “I should do it like that dad.”  Walking along I started to think of bygone Christmases when I saw the Coopers, they were making their way to my house.  I quickened my step and as I walked past my kitchen window I could see the Coopers sat around the kitchen table with Jackie. 

“Good morning Mr and Mrs Cooper,” I announced as I entered into the kitchen.

“Good morning Allan,” replied both Mr and Mrs Cooper in unison. Jackie looked up and smiled.

“Allan, I rang and invited Mr and Mrs Cooper up for supper this evening.”

“Oh, what a lovely idea, well done, Jackie.”

“Ah, and that is the reason why we are here,” said Mrs Cooper almost in a whisper.  “The fact is, we would have loved to have come but it has clashed with us having supper with Lord and Lady Foxton. We usually meet up and have supper every couple of months and it just so happens that it has fallen on this weekend. It is such a shame, it would have been a real treat as your roast dinners are well renowned.”

“Well, why don’t you all come over here tonight, I’ll do roast beef and Yorkshire pudding followed by apple crumble made from the Bramley apples that you have kindly brought me today?”

“I think that is a splendid idea, what do you think dear?” asked Mrs Cooper turning to her husband who was nodding emphatically. “I quite agree, here it is then.”

Earlier on in the week, Monday night as it just so happens, I returned home about 5pm and on the doorstep I was greeted with a very handsome table display made from the most beautiful crimson roses and a bagful of sumptuous grapes and plums.  The grapes and plums have since been devoured by Jackie and myself but the rose table display still looked most magnificent.  It had been dropped off by some much respected friends and what better time to show it off than the entertaining of Lord and Lady Foxton and the Coopers.  The rest of the day was taken up by myself going up and down to and from the attic retrieving the Christmas lights and Jackie buzzing about the kitchen preparing and cooking ready for this evening meal. It was looking more and more lightly that the Christmas decorations was going to be a Sunday morning escapade as the replacing of bulbs was extremely time consuming.  In amongst this chaotic scene the phone rang.  Jackie answered it with a pastry floured hand, “Oh hello Mrs Cooper, of course, of course they can come, the more the merrier, yes yes, that’s fine, see you all at 8pm”. Jackie put the phone down and called into me, “That’s two more for supper Allan, Nimrod, who is driving them and Antonio is also coming.”  In no time at all it was five to eight and lights were shining up the front of a very dark house.  There was a knock on the door which I opened to Lord and Lady Foxton, Mr and Mrs Cooper, Antonio and Nimrod.  Antonio was now just aided with a walking stick.  Almost miraculous.  To think that Lord and Lady Foxton were told by top doctors that it was most unlikely that Antonio would ever walk again after her horrific hunting accident.  Jackie came out the kitchen and greeted them all while I took their coats. Antonio came over to me and threw her arms around me, “Allan, what you did for me and my badgers will never be forgotten. Nimrod has told my mother and father, my children and I what you did and how you did it.  Is Nimrod exaggerating Allan? Was it really nine dogs?”

“It was nine dogs,” I confirmed.  Antonio’s face went stony straight.

“My badgers would have been ripped to pieces.”

“But they weren’t, let’s talk about something a little more pleasant.” Antonio nodded in agreement and a smile spread across her now radiant face.  As Antonio left me and walked into the kitchen to see Jackie, Nimrod leant over to me and whispered, “I had to tell them Allan, they wanted to know every detail, and thanks again my old friend, I too will never forget.”

After twenty minutes of pleasantries, the main course was served.  Aberdeen Angus was never more welcome.  Soon the conversation turned to the Foxton’s badgers and how Nimrod had been assigned the task of keeping them well fed and turnips was proving to be a tasty addition to their diet much to Antonio’s amusement.  As we all listened about the antics of the Foxton’s badgers and the gratitude being poured upon the Coopers, it was really pleasing to see that the Foxton’s held the Coopers with such high regard, almost awe with their prowess and care of the Foxton’s badgers.  Antonio then said “The sooner Allan’s protection programme of wall building and hedge planting commences the happier I will be.”

“Hear, hear,” responded Lord and Lady Foxton.  As if my programme wasn’t busy enough. Nimrod winked over at me as if to say, “You’re well in here Allan.” As we all carried on conversations about the present and the past, the flames leaping around the logs in the fireplace, you could sense that each time the badgers were mentioned, the Coopers were longing to tell them all about Daddy Cool and his family, for to them the greatest badger on The Cotswolds was Daddy Cool himself.  But their lips remained sealed.  Daddy Cool and his family were under the protection of Mozart’s Magic Flute.  Off grid, top secret.  The fewer people that knew of Daddy Cool’s whereabouts, the safer he will remain.  “A toast,” said Lady Foxton holding up her glass, Lord Foxton along with the rest of us raised our glasses also, “To the end of the badger cull, best health to the badgers.” 

“To the badgers,” we all echoed, “and may General Winter show mercy on wildlife everywhere.”

As we toasted the badgers, I could not help in looking over at Antonio and finding it quite difficult to believe that she had been a paraplegic and now she was moving quite beautifully with the aid of a small cane and Mr and Mrs Cooper who were visibly looking and acting younger. The badgers had been and still are a wonderful tonic for Antonio as well as the Coopers. Although, you couldn’t help but marvel at the love and determination and time that the Coopers had invested in these glorious and almost mythical animals, however, you also could not help but wonder just how much good these animals were doing them.

A rose has the ability of warming you totally the second you set your eyes on its beauty.

Turkeys Make Us Move in Mysterious Ways.

When I was hedge laying last weekend and the Coopers joined me for lunch up at Beech Wyn, they reminded me of a story that had been prompted by their meeting that morning with an old gamekeeper called Catweazle down at the village hall.  

As we sat by the fire eating our bread, eggs and bacon, I started to tell the Coopers of a story that  angered Catweazle as much today as it did all those years ago.

It was at the village Christmas bazaar in the early seventies, and in those days one of the prized offerings was a twenty five pound turkey, all plucked, dressed and ready for the oven, and with this turkey came a competition on how it was to be won.  This was usually done by means of guessing the weight, who could lift the most weight or some general knowledge quiz.  This particular year however, Catweazle who was, I must say, the most formidable gamekeeper I have ever known.  There was nothing that he couldn’t shoot, there was nothing that he couldn’t catch and there was nothing that he didn’t know about the countryside, but all that being said, he was still one of the most dull, most arrogant, evil minded, bad tempered person that I have ever come across.   That was in those days.  According to the Coopers, he has since mellowed. 

Catweazle was on the committee of the bazaar and he thought it rather apt to have a days’ shooting and whoever came back with the most edible game won the turkey.  There wasn’t that many takers, largely due to the fact that not many people liked shooting, not even enough to win the twenty five pound turkey.  The afternoon of the bazaar, various gamekeepers, farm labourers and have-a-go pot shooters lined up to put their signature in the ‘I’ll have a go book’.  As I watched, I thought that I would love a go at that and joined the queue.  As I got further down the line and people had noticed that I was in it that was when the real jeering and mickey taking started.  “You’ve not even got a gun,” were the shouts. “You’re too young for shooting,” then a hand on my shoulder was pulling me out of the line away from the signing in book.  It was Catweazle and he was yelling about, “Come away, come away boy, being so stupid, you are too young for a shotgun, you’ve no license.” 

“Who mentioned shotgun?” I questioned. “I’ve got an air rifle.”

“Yes, and don’t I know it,” replied Catweazle gritting his teeth. We had had many a pheasant off of Catweazle’s patch over a period of time.  “No, you can’t do it, it’s for shotguns.”

“There’s no mention of shotguns on the posters.” I stated back at him pointing at the poster on the wall.  “And this competition is open for all, not just the chosen few who have shotguns.”  Just then, amongst all the commotion, the wife of the landowner approached us. Catweazle immediately let go of me and doffed his cap.

“I’m sorry about this Ma’am.”

“That’s quite alright,” was her reply. “I’ve heard the gist of this while I was sat by the fire with my cream tea and the lad here is right, let him have a go.  What chance does he stand against all you grown men, I admire his spirit.  And a week today, Saturday, 23rd of December, I will check you all out at 8am and check you all back in at 4pm and the one with the most edible game will be presented with the twenty five pound turkey.”

“Thank you Ma’am, I will see you at 8am on Saturday the 23rd and by the way, what part of the estate is the shooting to be held”

“You must pick your peg position from the bucket that will determine where you will be shooting.” Catweazle then produced a bucket and started to walk around the participants inviting them to have a lucky dip. Eventually it came around to me. My hand was soon inside the bucket, routing around until I found the perfect one. I pulled out the peg with the number 8 daubed on it.

 “Where am I on the estate with this peg?” I asked holding it aloft. I was soon shouted down by Catweazle and a couple more keepers “Wait until everyone has picked their pegs you impatient little runt.” Her Ladyship then produced a sheet of paper with the corresponding estate positions to the numbers that had been drawn from the bucket. She began calling out the numbers and then mine came out.

“Number 8, The Big Grizzly,”

“Not too bad a spot,” I thought.

The Big Grizzly was a farm towards the Northern part of the estate.  Woodland and pasture.  It was important that I knew where it was to be held as I also knew that an airgun against shotguns is a very tall order indeed.  Catweazle and a couple of other gamekeepers came over to me. “You haven’t got a chance, birds fly very high up at The Big Grizzly.” I ignored their banter and was only too pleased to be involved in the Turkey Competition.

As the bazaar drew to a close my mother, brothers, sister and I left to go home and from the village hall to our house the word idiot was mentioned by them fifty or sixty times.  “No one makes a fool of themselves like you Allan, wait ‘till we tell dad.” Mum was surprisingly quiet. I think she honestly thought that I had a good chance of winning that turkey.  That night’s teatime around the table with a cottage loaf and a lump of cheese, my father and brothers laughed and jibed.  “I know you’re not the brightest light on the tree Allan but take it from me, an airgun against a shotgun is the biggest mismatch as you trying to throw me over the front wall.” But as they were laughing and jibing my mind was already in overdrive on how I could wipe the smile off Catweazle’s face.  And by the time the bread and cheese supper was over, I had worked it out as to how I was going to achieve this. 

“Don’t worry your heads about a turkey this Christmas mum and dad, because this year mum, you will be cooking that twenty five pound turkey.”

“And pigs will be flying by Boxing Day,” replied dad. 

Friday night, 22nd December duly came and there hadn’t been much talk about turkeys all that week.  The school bus dropped us off in the village at 4pm, I ran on ahead of my brothers and sister to our house, inside the door and straight upstairs, I changed into my rough clothes, I got my trusted BSA Mercury .22 air rifle from under my bed and I was soon down in the kitchen cutting some bread and a lump of cheese.  “Don’t go eating that, it will be supper time soon, what do you think you are doing?”

“I’m going out tonight pheasanting and I will be late back.” Mum never liked me pheasanting neither much did dad.  But my father was very much of the mind that the Landowners owned the land but the wildlife upon it belonged to no man. The owner of nature was a much higher authority. A view probably as wrong today as it was then. We loved the pheasant dinners but poaching was a serious business.  As I have said before, we rented a house from the estate and in those days, poaching, if you were unlucky enough to get caught, your whole family could be turned out of the house so the risks were tangible. 

My plan was simply to go out that Friday evening and try and bag a few pheasants and rabbits and walk up and drop them off at The Big Grizzly where then on the following day, to all pretence and purposes it would be as if they had been shot on the 23rd.  Five forty five it was pitch dark.  I was out of the house and down the track and soon across the fields.  My peg number being The Big Grizzly meant that it was two and a half miles there and back.  It was to be a very long night.  The weather wasn’t particularly good, but it was bright with a three quarter moon which meant that the lighter the night, the more the pheasants were on their guard.  Soon I was underneath a Hawthorne tree, three pheasants silhouetted against the night time sky.  The BSA Mercury was in my hands already pointing at the highest bird for that was the clearest shot.  A zip from the air rifle and he came tumbling down inside the Hawthorne tree.  The other two pheasants immediately flew off.  This started a chain reaction of pheasants cutting off throughout the countryside.  The pheasant had got entangled half way down the tree.  I looked for a stick and the pheasant was soon freed and fell to the ground.  I put him inside my hessian sack but the noise from the cutting off pheasants was concerning. A fox getting too close to a pheasant would make them cut off on a light night but so would a poacher.  Soon I was walking down the hedgerows heading for much thicker woodland all the time in the direction of The Big Grizzly.  This was a poor night for poaching.  The hedgerows were going to bear no more fruit as every pheasant I approached flew off into the moonlit night.  Just then I heard a vixen letting off her blood curdling scream. “Must follow the foxes,” I thought.  Soon I was in the thick woodland with my one measly pheasant in my sack.  I briskly walked on through the woodland scrunching on the leaves that lay underfoot which every animal within a quarter of mile could possibly hear. I was focussed, concentrating on following the fox.  She was still in front of me in the distance.  After about fifteen minutes I saw the first snare.  “The Keepers had been busy,” I thought.  The first rabbit had had his head half chewed off.  “She isn’t hungry then,” I mused, as this is an old fox’s trick of putting the rabbit out of its misery.  “Damn, I can’t take that one.” But where there was one snare, there was very often a dozen.  I was now on the top boundary of the woodland.  All that I had to do now was walk down the edge of the wood and field and I should be able to gather my harvest.  Another snare placed in a rabbit run, head chewed, “Damn,” As I leant down to the rabbit the blood around the neck of the rabbit was still moist although the rabbit had been dead for a few hours.  The fox was just making sure that they were dead. She wasn’t too far ahead of me.  What I did then was very risky, as for my plan to have any chance of working, she had to be stopped from mutilating these rabbits. I had to have rabbits.  I picked up a large stick and started to wack the top strand of barbed wire as hard as I could, and started to shout.  I kept it up for three or four minutes.  Pheasants and pigeons were flying out all over the place.  I put down my stick and hurried along the top of the woodland.  Another snare, this time it was a complete rabbit.  That had the fox, she was gone leaving the catch of the snares to me.  Soon another snare and soon another rabbit, then another, then another, then another.  My hessian bag was now starting to feel pleasantly weighty.  One pheasant and seventeen rabbits. Eventually I arrived at The Big Grizzly.  I hid them amongst a thick hedge.  Now it was time to return home to bed.  The excitement of the following day ringing around my mind. 

The morning of the 23rd I was up early. I had a quick breakfast then fetched down my airgun with pellets.  I made myself a couple of sandwiches and a flask. My mum and dad wished me well and I was soon walking across the fields to The Court.  I arrived at The Court, I wasn’t the first or the last. We were then all greeted by her Ladyship who wished us a good days’ sport and said those immortal words, “May the best man win.” The Land Rovers were ready to despatch us to our various shooting points.  All very exciting to a fourteen year old.  Seven thirty we set off.  All in all there were twenty two competitors.  I was dropped off at The Big Grizzly at seven forty five. I waited until eight am and then I immediately made a b line to where I had dropped my hessian sack full of rabbits and my one pheasant from the night before.  The day was bright, clear and frosty with a breeze that was quite cutting if you allowed it to be, but while you kept moving it was a lovely day but a poor day for shooting.  Your scent could be picked up from miles away, very little chance of creeping up on anything and with my bag already quite substantial, almost full, I was not too concerned.  I got the rabbits out of the sack and hung them up by their back legs and ruffled up the fur around their necks to leave no trace of the snare wire and to keep them as good looking as possible for four pm that afternoon.  Then I put an air rifle pellet into each rabbit. I could hear the gun shots in the distance throughout the day but I couldn’t help but think they couldn’t be having much joy in these type of conditions. Three forty five duly came round and I was picked up by one of the Land Rovers.  “Good heavens, you’ve had a good day.”

“A great day,” I replied.  I asked the four people in the Land Rover what sort of day had they had, but their silence and miserable outlook told me that they had had a disappointing time. 

Back at The Court the other four Land Rovers had already returned and the competitors were listening to her Ladyship who was addressing them from the stone steps in front of her imposing home. Each man had his game laid out in front of him.  I only had eyes for Catweazle’s game.  I could see quite a number.  In fact, all down the line there was a tad more game than I had envisaged.  I joined the end of the queue and started to unpack my sack.  I laid the rabbits and my pheasant out in front just like the others.  Her Ladyship walked down the line with Catweazle.  Catweazle’s heap was the opposite end of mine.  Seven pheasants, five pigeons, three rabbits and one hare, that in anybody’s reckoning was a fantastic day’s shooting. Down the line they came. Catweazle had excelled himself.  He was full of confidence.  You could see in his smug face that he felt sure that his bag was the largest and as they got to me his bag was still the leading count.  When he saw the game in front of me his face went immediately stony straight.  He had counted my bag quicker than any calculator, “Seventeen rabbits and one pheasant,” he muttered.

“Well I never, you have done well,” congratulated her Ladyship with a beaming smile.  She then presented me with my precious prize. Catweazle then dispersed his men and was then asked by her Ladyship to take me home.  The ride home, Catweazle, myself and the turkey was one of the most awkward short journeys I had ever endured.  Even thinking of it today makes me cringe.  His passing comment to me as I stepped out of the Land Rover was.  “I don’t know how you did it, seventeen rabbits and a pheasant with an air gun on a day like this, I just don’t believe it you cheating little git.”  My comment back to Catweazle was, “Christmas turkeys make us move in mysterious ways.  Have a great Christmas Catweazle.”

A free range turkey always reminds me of Christmas in the most magical way.

Nature’s Top Guns.

In a week that has seen Defra criticised on the Badger cull with no real scientific strategy, and Bovine TB being found in Cumbria which can be directly linked to cattle movements, I have been really quite disheartened by the hopelessness of this Badger cull situation.  And yet, on the other hand, I have seen delightful developments up and around my Badger sett, in as much as, the Stag whose presence has been most welcome around my Badger sett for parts of the day, a Barn Owl who has had a continual presence over the sett by night have now been joined by a Sparrow Hawk that is continually in and out of the area and a couple of Buzzards have set up camp just a few yards down from the Badger sett and the Little Owl that positively relishes the idea of keeping an eye over his back and white friends.  This could be a coincidence, although in my experience, any animal in nature that doesn’t take heed from coincidence, their life span is dramatically reduced.  So on that note, I prefer to think it is the Badgers calling in long past favours from nature’s top guns and it ‘takes my breath away’.

Watch my short film of a beautiful Badger.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTquHdBQoC0&feature=youtube_gdata

Hedge Laying and Bazaars

Frosts decided to grace us with their presence this week. Two frosty mornings with damp in the air which makes for a particularly chilly, rimy start to the working day.  But I personally love a frosty morning.  It makes everything so clean and fresh and it fills you with a certain exuberance, so nothing that you take on that day seems to be too adventurous.

It was on such a morning as this last mid-week that I noticed a hedge up towards the badger sett that needed attention.  It had grown tall and straggly and needed laying.  It is a very ancient hedge and they say; “for every variety of tree in a hedge you add a 100 years”.  In this particular hedge there is Hazel, Hawthorne, Blackthorn, Ash and Field Maple so to my reckoning, it is at least 500 years old.  And in its lifetime it has probably been laid a few dozen times.  A hedge is in constant evolution, ever in flux.  The homes it creates for nature and the protection it gives, it is a truly, remarkable, living boundary and one I never tire of looking at or working on to preserve. 

I set out early Saturday morning with billhook, camping stove and kettle in the back of the Land Rover to the hedge in question.  It was about 500 yards from my badger sett.  However, just as I was leaving the house I bumped into the Coopers who were carrying a couple of bags.  I had not seen much of them since I moved their tent from the sett a few weeks ago.  We were now on good speaking terms, they understood, and they were still just as enthusiastic as ever on the protection of the badgers. 

“What are you up to this morning Allan?” asked Mr. Cooper.

“Laying that hedge up at Beech Wyn.”

“Oh, we might be up later.”

“Well if you do come up, bring some eggs and a few bits of bacon and we’ll have some lunch.”

“That sounds lovely,” Mrs Cooper replied with Mr Cooper nodding.

“What are you both up to?”

“We’re just dropping off a few bits and pieces for the village bazaar.”

“Oh yes, Jackie is just sorting out a few things for that, well lovely to see you, hopefully see you both later.”

“Oh we’ll be there Allan,” and with that we all went our separate ways.

In a very short time I was up at the hedge, first job being, getting a small fire going.  I filled the kettle from the water canister and soon the flames were leaping around it.  Time goes by so quickly when you are hedging and soon my jacket was off and it was time for a cup of tea.  As I sat on an old stump I noticed I was being kept company by a couple of Magpies who seemed to be looking down at the few yards of hedge that I had laid, I picked up another handful of sticks and put on the fire and there I sat with my tea.

 It must have been the Coopers mentioning the word Bazaar and I started to reminisce of the village bazaars of yesteryear, which were always two or three weeks before Christmas.  The villages were full of kids in those days and it was one of the main events on the village calendar.  There were a couple of large families in the village, mine being one of them and the village bazaar organisers would ask my mother if she would like to go round the night before the bazaar in the village hall and go through the jumble.  A lot of our clothes in those days were from the summer jumble sale, fete and bazaar.  It was a favour to my mother and family that she was so very pleased with and always held the two or three people who ran the bazaar in very high esteem. 

As I looked into the flames of my little fire listening to the sticks crackling as the flames licked in between them, I thought back to the winters when we were all small kids in a little cottage with one fire which my parents could not afford to fuel properly.  Coal was a very precious resource and was always expensive.  So us kids were always wooding, with our little wood cart, the fun was immeasurable, the days were really quite magical. 

It was  early December on a Friday evening, we were all sat around the fire, myself, dad and my five siblings, waiting for mum to return with her jumble sale purchases, my father told us of a family fable which he duly demonstrated.  He picked up a stick from the bundle by the side of the fire, he passed the stick to my eldest brother.  He then told my eldest brother to break it, which my eldest brother did with ease.  Dad then told him to toss it into the fire.  My father then picked up two sticks and passed it to my next brother down, dad then told him to break those, again, my brother was able to do.  Dad then told him to toss them into the fire.  Dad then picked up three sticks and passed them to the next brother down who was a twin with my sister.  With a little bit more of an effort he broke them and then tossed them into the fire by my father’s instruction.  Dad then picked up four sticks and passed them to my sister, she grappled with the sticks.  The effort this time was much more visible, after a minute or so she broke them over her knee.  She then tossed those into the fire.  My father then picked up five sticks and gave them to me.  I put the sticks across my knee, I tried and I tried to break the sticks, but I could not break them no matter how much I tried.  My brothers and sister watched as I struggled with this handful of sticks.  After what seemed to be an eternity but which was probably only a couple of minutes, I had to hand them back to my father defeated. With the embarrassment of not being able to do what my brothers and sister had done, I looked to my father and asked him “What was the point of that?” My father did not reply but handed them to each of my brothers and sister in turn as they too could not break the sticks. He then explained, “As you go through life, the more you lose contact and splinter away from each other, the easier you are to be broken, but if you stick together and each one’s problem becomes all of your problems, you will never be broken.”  This lesson I have never forgotten from a man I respected more than any other.  A man who had been a paratrooper at Arnhem and wounded three times and yet survived.  A self-employed Stone Mason who brought up six kids in very taxing and an austere age. 

After another couple of hours of hedge laying I was startled by, “Oh you’re getting on very well here.”  The Cooper’s invalidity buggy was so silent and yet so cool as it carried them along two up.  

Mr and Mrs Cooper then set up the frying pan and was soon cracking eggs and in no time you could smell the delicious scent of bacon and eggs.  As I cut the fresh loaf of bread into door step chunks, Mrs Cooper went on to say how they had bumped into an old keeper named Catweazle at the bazaar and what really tickled the Coopers was how he was going on about how he had lost a Christmas turkey to me forty years earlier.  A story I will tell you all about another time.

Magpies always seemed to look at you with an "I can do better" attitude.