ALEXANDRA SHULMAN'S NOTEBOOK: The hunting snap that left folk baying for my blood
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What activity saw a gathering of carers, hill farmers, midwives, children, parents, shopkeepers and even a vicar on New Year’s Day in a small village in North Yorkshire?. And what picture of this event posted on my Instagram feed prompted more fuss than any other I’ve put up over the past year? Answer, none other than the traditional meet of the local hunt.
![[A hunt near Husthwaite, North Yorkshire on Boxing Day 2020. I’d be interested to know how many of the leading Labour politicians who are committed to outlawing this have been within even a sniff of a hunt]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/04/23/93745695-14250819-image-a-38_1736034591392.jpg)
Now I have no particular passion for hunting, but having witnessed this event, it makes a nonsense of the Government’s determination to bring in further restrictions. This hunt, where hounds and riders follow an aniseed-scented trail through streams and forests, hills and dales, is no more dangerous to the fox population than that animal’s everyday existence, with all the hazards endemic to life in nature.
![[The description of a hunt by the Environment Department as ‘a smokescreen to cruelly kill foxes and hares’ is one more example of those pronouncing having no experience of what they’re talking about (file photo)]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/04/23/93745703-14250819-image-a-39_1736034594603.jpg)
There has been no killing of a fox by this group in years, no baying of the aristocracy, no blooding of teenagers. Instead it was a wonderful display of an activity that had nothing to do with privilege and everything to do with a cherished tradition where children plod along on their stocky ponies behind the hunt masters in their red jackets and women, their hair worn in snoods, only slightly less intricately styled than the horse’s manes. Followed by walkers from the village.
![[Estate agents are now encouraging buyers to come up with a story to resonate with sellers (file photo)]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/05/00/93745859-14250819-image-a-44_1736035479964.jpg)
The description of this by the Environment Department as ‘a smokescreen to cruelly kill foxes and hares’ is one more example of those pronouncing having no experience of what they’re talking about. I’d be interested to know how many of the leading Labour politicians who are committed to outlawing this – surely a harmless activity – have been within even a sniff of a hunt.
![[If Meghan Markle had even a thousandth of the intelligence of Ephron, she would have not worn white on her Netflix cooking show - just one splash and it's curtains]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/05/00/93745895-14250819-image-m-46_1736035593592.jpg)
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