I have no axe to grind either way and certainly have no liking for the 'landed gentry' or 'wannabes' attracted to it ....
So for the sake of balance (please note Couchwalker) I thought it worth posting my ramblings on the subject.
I suspect this won't be popular but it's my view and I'm yet to be shown something to warrant me changing it. Happy to be proved wrong, but not by BBC type views, please.
What a good post and one I wholeheartedly agree with.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not pro-fox hunting, far from it. I don't eat meat or dairy, which admittedly was initially due to health reasons, but is now down to animal welfare reasons. In fact, late 80's I was a hunt sab, and a member of a well known animal 'welfare' organisation and also was a hunt 'monitor' on a few hunts more recently. Being involved with people like that made me realise a lot of them had no interest in the foxes welfare, they were there to cause trouble. What so called hunt monitor, blows a horn on the opposite side of a busy dual carriageway to try and lure the hounds into traffic? The 'brutality' dished out was generally because they were just as bad, trying to dismount riders, deliberately standing in their path, trespassing on property they had no right on, whilst the hunt did. Of course tempers will flare. Both sides were in the wrong but of course it was the hunt that was made to look bad. Personally I find them as bad as each other.
What annoyed me was that the thread was quite civilised but then 1 comment which wasn't required gives it the potential to descend into another drama fest. I have many forums I can go to if I want that, from my observations, this forum is generally drama free and I love it for that reason. I'm all for healthy debate, but this thread wasn't going that way.