Taste Of Fowling Fit For A King

Wildfowling by its nature is largely practised in dreadful conditions at ungodly hours and Richard Negus doesn’t want to put his son off

- Richard Negus

I have a memory from my years spent in Leicestershire. It is an image that has helped me as a father, determined to educate my son in the ways of the countryside. It was a time of decadence, albeit financially impoverished thanks to my ineptitude as a horse dealer.

The lovely Jacobean estate where I had my yard sat in the heart of the Quorn Hunt’s Friday country, a sea of old grass, black-hearted hedges and persevering foxes with an addiction to running in straight lines. We hosted a number of meets each season, one of the most popular being that for the Pony Club.

At the time, because I was both single and childless, children fell into two categories — foul or horrible. From my viewpoint on the edge of the ha-ha, the sight of 100 or more mums and dads, desperately trying to control mischievous Thelwellian steeds, and their rosy-faced, beaming jockeys, thawed my child phobia.

On the peripheries of the assembled young equestrians, I spied one child slightly different to the rest. His mount was no rotund, hirsute Shetland. Its rolling eye, fine coat and limbs spoke of bluer blood. The young rider was dressed in perfectly fitting ratcatcher, gleaming field boots and a high-crowned bowler hat. His father, too, was aristocratically mounted and impeccably attired, and held the lead-rein to his son’s pony with seemingly studied indifference.

The boy at first glance appeared similarly imperious. Intrigued, I studied the pair closely. Dad was evidently on remarkably good terms with himself. However, on inspection I could see dour junior’s mask was just that, a disguise. He wore no hint of a smile nor winter rouge on his cheeks; he was the colour of milk.