A new pack in old country

Hunting is the glue that holds many rural communities together but we must adapt in order to keep this tradition alive. Picking up where its predecessors left off, the Fife Bloodhounds are doing just that

- NETIA WALKER

IN A countryside under pressure from a sharp focus on farming, its relationship with the environment and biodiversity, and changing attitudes towards the way we use animals, the ability for us to adapt has never been so important if we are to preserve the country pursuits that so many of us hold dear.

Henry and Louisa Cheape hail from beautiful Strathtyrum, in St Andrews, Fife. Both are ‘roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty’ types who feel passionately not just about farming, rural businesses and local community but regeneration and conservation, too. Louisa also has a deep love of hounds. So passionate is she about them that, after the disbanding of the Fife Foxhounds, with Henry’s support she decided to set up her own pack of bloodhounds.

“For many rural people, hunting had been their glue; it’s where they knew they would find each other every week, and ask why you ‘weren’t out on Saturday’ if they didn’t see you,” Louisa Cheape says of the vital community bond the local hunting fraternity shares. “It’s also where they would exchange stories and share their love of seeing the hounds and the horses turned out so beautifully.

“Hunting also fosters a wonderful bond between people of all ages. I have such strong memories of the people who were so kind to me as a nine-year-old, taking me under their wing and keeping a watchful eye. We immediately had something to talk about, which isn’t always easy with a 50-year age gap,” Cheape believes. “Be you man or woman, on a pushbike, a hairy pony or a big shiny horse, you were one and the same; to be respected equally.”