Building for the future

The Mendip Farmers’ boasts a thriving following and a youthful and energetic mastership ready to perpetuate its excellent sport and sociability, finds Tessa Waugh

ALL too often hunts register a lack of support in the 25-40 age group. There seem to be plenty of children coming into the sport and plenty more in the 50-plus age bracket, but, in some areas, a shortage of people in their prime.

The fact that the Mendip Farmers’ in Somerset have two joint-masters and a huntsman all in their 30s is a really positive sign for hunting in general. Here is a group of young people with the time and energy to bring to the sport and take it into the challenging years that lie ahead.

They in turn must attract more support from their own age range, which is something that joint master Vicky Heal underlined, saying, “We have lots of people hunting with us in their 20s and early 30s.”

Driving to their new kennels at Priddy gives a good flavour of what’s on offer here. Much of the Mendip country is typical of the West Country — a wealth of what, before the ban, would have been described as “foxy” places; plentiful, thick mounds of brambles and old turf along with a network of jumpable walls that are unique to this part of the world.

The Mendip has always had the reputation as an excellent riding country. Of course there’s a bit of traffic as there is all over the south of England, but on a wet day with the hedges and trees looking promisingly black, the country glimpsed from the road has the power to give you goosebumps even if you’re sitting in a car.

YOUNGSTERS AT THE HELM

“WE’RE lucky, compared to all our neighbours it’s not that wet here,” explained Vicky who, as a farmer’s daughter growing up on the border of the Mendip Farmers’ country and the Blackmore and Sparkford Vale (B&SV), has hunted with both packs since she was a child.