the bloody struggle of the hunts’...
TRANSCRIPT
7 Days 2 February 1972
The Bloody Struggle of theHunts’ Saboteurs Sport by B illy Hack
RORKE “PAT” GARFIELD is an ex-para he says that he is making full use of his
tough-neck training now. “It’s guerilla war tactics. If those guys try violence again they’ll really cop it. So many of our people have been beaten up and smashed up already . . . This group is not a bunch of old ladies with their knickers in a twist. I have combat experience. We mean business.”
Garfield, who adds emphatically that he would harm “neither man nor beast” is a leading militant in the Hunt Saboteurs Association, currently stepping up their campaign against hare coursing and other kinds of “sporting” violence.
Anti-MaleThe coming week is a busy one for
the cause. On Friday, Garfield appears in Court, charged with “a breach of the peace” . His offence was to spray the hounds in Earl FitzWilliams hunt with “Anti-Mate” , a potent but harmless mixture used to calm bitches on heat. It throws the dogs off the scent. Garfield is so certain that the spray is innocuous that he will invite his accusers to douse him with it, in front of the court.
By a chance irony, on the same day, William Price, M.P.’s Private Members’ Bill to ban hare coursing comes up in Parliament. As it has drawn nine in the Private Members’ list it has little or no chance of getting through. The Labour Government was committed to a reform of Field Sports as Government policy, and the anti-coursing bill was one of the last pieces of legislation to come a cropper when Wilson called the election. Even then, it was backed by many Conservatives, including Margaret Thatcher.
There are a few “renegade” Labour M.P.’s who did not support the Bill, including Reginald Paget, Q.C., Labour M.P. for Northampton, Garfield’s combat territory. Paget is a Master of Foxhounds, and hopes to die with his spurs on.
Traditional PursuitsBut the present Government, any
way, has said that it will do nothing about blood sports, not wanting to interfere with the “traditional pursuits of the countryside” .
Last week, there was a spectacular warm-up to the Bill’s appearance in Parliament, when M.P.’s, members of the League Against Cruel Sports, and two hunt saboteurs turned up at the Buckmore coursing field near Huntingdon. By chance, this happened to be Earl FitzWilliams stamping-ground.
Before the afternoon was over, violence had broken out against men as well as hares, and a series of legal actions are simmering.
It seems that as the beaters began to chase the hares from nearby fields into the 15 acre area where 200 coursers were waiting. A series of thunder-flashes and fireworks rent the air, confusing both the hares and the dogs which are released in pairs to catch them as they come through the hedge.
Self-confessed villains are two hunt saboteurs, a man and a woman, who had arrived early.
They made a get-away in a waiting 15 cwt. green van, but they allege that they were chased by four coursers carrying
big sticks who shouted abuse at them. According to the saboteurs, the coursers also got mobile and pursued the green van as far as the nearby village of Weston, twice trying to run them off the road.
Blood MeetingMeanwhile, events were hotting up at
the meeting itself. The two M.P.’s, Joe Ashton and Bill Price, were standing around with Raymond Rowley, Chairman of the League against Cruel Sports, and the Secretary, Mark Davis. The League does not approve of the Saboteurs’ tactics. Davis later told me, “Sooner or later those people are going to blow a dog or a hare to pieces” . The League’s tactics are based on Parliamentary pressure. But sorting out one pressure group from another seems to have been too much for the infuriated coursers.
"It was a Mistake"According to William Price, M.P.,
“We were mistaken for the people who had earlier stupidly been throwing fireworks in the direction of the dogs. I am
totally opposed to that kind of action.“We had been there for 21/2 hours. We
had spoken to nobody and had caused no trouble. In fact we had been sitting in a car for a lot of the time.
“But then we saw troops marshalling.
“Then 15 people advanced towards us. They were something the worse for drink, and they used language which shocked even me. I have spent 24 years in a Welsh mining village, so I’m not easily shocked.
“ I was threatened, abused and spat upon, and Davis was physically assaulted, twice. When we revealed that we were members of Parliament, things calmed down at once, though what difference that should make I don’t know.”
Mr. Price added that he had seen “five hares torn to pieces” and that he assumed that “violence had led to violence” . He did not miss the chance of denouncing the saboteurs, however. “It’s like that bloody woman who threw ink at Mr. Heath. All she did was get sympathy for him. ”
His final words were, “ If the British Field Association says that I was not abused and spat upon, and if they say that Mr. Davis was not assaulted, then they are liars. Now I've said that, let’s see whether they take me to court or not.”
No ViolenceBut Mr. Raymond Brooks-Ward, of
the British Field Sports Association, also does deny the violence. “ It has been fully investigated and it isn’t true" He, too, stressed that “Violence leads to violence” , though. Not in this case the violence of the sport itself, to which he refused to admit, but the alleged tactics of the saboteurs, whom he consistently tried to confide with the league. “ If you threw a stink-bomb on to a football field there would be violence . . . these are rent-a-crowd tactics. Its the same business as if you don’t like South African cricket pitches, you kick them up. It is high time this sort of thing was stopped.”
Ominously, the ubiquitous private prosecutor of Peter Hain and other
anti-apartheid demonstrators, is threatening to sue hunt saboteurs as well.
Peace Has No ChanceBut for all their good intentions, it
seems that as in so many other things the League Against cruel Sports, with its peaceful, observatory tactics will not get very far. Even Mr. Price admits that his Bill has “less than a fifty fifty chance of getting through this time.” The League has been with us since 1924, and the hunting classes still pursues its vicariously violent pleasures virtually untrammelled. On local, and limited issues such as this direct action can work.
On February 9, 10, 11, the Waterloo Cup is held. This is the grand coursing spectacle attracting crowds of over a thousand for a three day orgy of hare-slaughtering and big money betting. The Hunt Saboteurs have assured 7 DAYS that they have something impressive up their sleeves for this. But you can be sure that whatever happens, Mr Price’s Bill won’t be law by then.
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7 Days 2 February 1972
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