by Harold Wayne-Bough
(“An English farmer is ruined when he’s down to his last Range Rover” – anon.)
Popped back to Blighty for a bit of grouse-shooting with Fatty Fortescue last month. Grouse are a bit thin on the ground around Guildford, but it gave us a chance to check out the new barmaid in the Fox & Hounds. Might have been the name of the pub or something, or maybe the Memsahib’s influence after her flag-waving in Paris, but Fatty and I decided (after a few pints of Old Bishop’s Toenails) to participate in the Countryside March on 22nd September (or the “Peasants’ Revolt” as Fatty called it). It seemed on the face of it a capital idea: bit of exercise, a day out in the big city, and the chance to shout our heads off in the street without being escorted back to the psychiatric ward.
We met up on the morning of the march with statutory green wellies, Barbour jackets, tweed caps and shotguns and parked Fatty’s Range Rover at Guildford station. Fatty had managed to borrow a pair of pedigree spaniels to lend us some gravitas for the occasion, although their yapping got on our nerves after a while and we left them with some new age travellers at Waterloo who promised to look after them until we got back. Our shotguns were confiscated by the police so we armed ourselves with rolled up copies of “Hare and Hound” and “Country Life” to brandish in the direction of parliament.
We met some interesting coves on the march. A middle-aged lady with a hatchet face and very tight jodhpurs marshalled us for a bit, frightfully bossy woman, had to take a comfort break at one point to get away from her. An ageing rock star with a stately pile and trout farm in the home counties, and two boys at Marlborough, offered us a swig of organic vodka from his Garrard solid silver hipflask. A gorgeous creature swathed in furs swept past, propelled by a pair of identical Afghans (dogs, that is, not asylum seekers). Some rustic types from Lincolnshire were handing out brochures advertising electric fences and teaching home-counties landowners how to say “Get orf moy laaaand” with the correct degree of menace. A large bearded Scotsman in a kilt barged past us with his sporran a-swinging, muttering “Frightfully sorry, old chaps, let’s have lunch sometime,” in an accent which had never been north of the M25, let alone the border. He turned out to be The MacHaggis of MacHaggis, the Laird of Loch Aargh (currently resident in the British Virgin Islands). There were sheep, dogs, sheepdogs, Morris dancers, pitchforks, cider and tortured vowels. “Air Hair Lair” bellowed our jodhpur’ed friend to a young chap with floppy hair who was a junior member of the Royal Family. A great cheer went up when David Gower flew his Piper over the crowd, and we all yelled “Howzat!!” in unison.
When we arrived at Whitehall, the third Earl of Duffington gave a stirring speech in which he challenged the head of DEFRA to come and help muck out his pigs for a day, inviting the Minister to reply to him by e-mail at “duffers@tropicana-beach-resort.com”.
A large number of protestors had been allowed to stand at a safe distance and hurl abuse and GM vegetables. Fatty and I deplored their tactics, such as bringing innocent children and pets to such a turbulent event: one group of scruffy oiks even had a pair of pedigree spaniels with them who yapped constantly with fear. The Afghan hounds were savaged by a pitbull terrier whose owner had dirty dreadlocks and his nom-de-guerre – SCRUMPY – tattooed across his forehead. We maintained our dignity throughout, and gave them the benefit of our breeding with advice such as: “Get a bally job!” and “A spell in the army would do you good!”. They returned fire with rare eloquence: “Sod off back to Kensington you posh gits!”.
Despite a few altercations with the great unwashed, the march went off peacefully, and the police were ever so helpful, getting the latest score from Lord’s on their radios and giving directions to Harvey Nichols for those in need of a loo. At the end we were entertained by a fat woman dressed as Boadicea who sang “Land of Hope and Glory” and then joined the Worzels for a rousing chorus of “I’ve got a brand-new combine harvester”.
It was a cracking day, and we horny-handed sons of the soil really showed those city slickers what’s what. Perhaps now they’ll leave us alone to husband the land in the time-honoured fashion, using traditional methods and following the natural rhythms of mother earth; without interference from central government or big business, sheep may safely graze and farmers may earn a living wage and produce healthy food that tastes good and is grown the way nature intended. Oh yes, forgot to tell you – we met that chap Scrumpy at the station, he was waiting to give us back the spaniels. Had to buy the chap a pint of cider for being so honest, even though he wasn’t frightfully fragrant, and ended up listening to all he had to say about globalisation, GM foods, real ale, recycling, crop circles, healing crystals and legalizing cannabis. After a couple of pints, thought the blighter talked a lot of sense. Could do with a wash, mind, but essentially not a bad bloke. Father’s a brigadier. We’re all meeting up at Glastonbury next year, when I’m going to show him some of my survival techniques and maybe introduce him to Bodger. We might make a man of Scrumpy yet.
