Beagling with the Radley College Pack

Well another weekend in the country, another chance to spend time with hounds! I had a treat this week to be invited to join the Radley College Beagles from Oxfordshire as they hunted the territory around Long Clawson (where the Belvoir Hunt opening meet was last weekend-see the last entry). So Jerrilee, the nursing professor, needed no coaxing after witnessing the Belvoir Hunt to get back in the car and drive us to our first day out with beagles.

Now you should know that Radley College is a prestigious boarding school for second form boys who start there when they are 14 and finish by 17 so it's a bit like a private high school. Students then go on to university (as I have now learned, mostly to Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Bristol, Edinburgh, and Exeter). Radley is also one of three schools that still maintain a beagle pack (Eton being one of the remaining two). Two of the boys are from this village so they were invited to bring the pack and hunt this territory for a day. As you can see from the first picture, we had quite a turn out for noon on a Friday. A couple of young children, some boys in their early teens, and plenty of old timers, all of whom came prepared with some of the most lovely walking sticks you can imagine.

As with all such country pursuits, tradition mandates that a host offer his guests refreshments. So here is John and his wife (she has her back to the camera) offering glasses of port to all and sundry.

A young blonde boy (perhaps their son) followed up with delicious sausages fresh from the oven! Unlike Saturday's meet with the Belvoir, when the port was handed around in plastic cups out of small cardboard boxes, John poured out into proper glasses and offered them to us on a tray. Ahh...civilization! As you can see, there were plenty of bottles of port to go through before we did anything else!

There were the usual hunt formalities of course. The Master (at 15 years old) thanked the farmers and landowners who opened their fields to the pack and followers. He greeted all the guests and of course thanked John and his wife for extending the invitation to come and hunt there. The we were away! The Master and his whips took the hounds across the road and into the pasture. As you can see from the picture. They just do what foxhounds would do except beagle packs are used to hunt hares typically (though no hares were going to be hunted today...this too is illegal under the Hunting ban). And for those of you unfamiliar with this kind of hunting, it is like a foxhunt without the fox and without horses. The field (spectators) follow on foot. So when I was warned to wear running shoes, they weren't kidding. Those beagles took off and after a bit of circling this first pasture, they picked up the scent and headed through and over the hedges at full cry. And when they run, they really go fast!

The followers on foot did our best to keep up but it was a losing battle. The best we could manage was to stay put and see where the hounds would run next and then head in that direction. But then those darned hounds would run right back in the direction we had just come and so back we went. The hounds occasionally startled the herd of cows you can see in the picture and they started a bit of a stampede. But then we figured out what those walking sticks were for! Those old timers just stepped right in front of those cows and held up their sticks and the cows stopped. Jerrilee and I were not so brave in the face of a scared bunch of cattle!

Occasionally we would have a glimpse of the pack in a field but before too long they were way off in the distance. The funny thing was everytime we looked up we saw another hare (and these were big hares!) tearing off in the opposite direction from the hounds. But did those hounds notice? Nope! They just kept barrelling forward! Hares 1 Beagles 0.

After two hours, the Master brought the pack back in but this was just a bit of a break. Despite looking more than a little hot and sweaty trying to keep up with their hounds, the Radley Master and staff headed them off in the opposite direction for the second half of thier day. At this point we decided to head back, having had a brilliant afternoon. If we had held out for another two hours, we would have been invited to a post-hunt tea. I regret not doing that but we did enjoy the day and we met some very great people including John and his wife, the hunt hosts. What a great sport for these boys too! We need more such things in our schools back home!