Last week we visited the Axe Vale Hunt for their final meet in Colyton. It was around this time last year that we found terrier men Dave Shillam, Tom Grinton and Ben Vincent, along with Emily Harland, digging out a fox from a badger sett, so they were overdue a visit!
The hunt met in front of J and FJ Baker & Co tannery on the northern edge of Colyton. After a marathon round of speeches detailing the history of the Axe Vale Hunt since the 1860s (when most of the followers were born) and even some singing, they set off on the road towards Lilylake and back towards their kennels.
They then spent a while riding up and down Downhayne Brake Road going into the woods at Downhayne Brake and then into Carswells Moor. While huntswoman Laura Shillam’s dad and a bunch of terrier goons held up the eastern side, sabs saw a fox break to the west and were able to quickly intervene and cover its scent. Tim Ingram and another gormless quad rider hitched a wet sock to the back of a quad bike and ‘laid a trail’ around Crookham Cross. Clive Shillam insisted that we film their pantomime, stating “you’d better be filming this – this is what we do all the time!”. When asked if that’s also what they were doing on the day of the the digout last year, he responded “oh well that was last year”.
Here’s a link to the digout footage from last year, for those who want a reminder of what ‘trail-hunting’ really looks like.
Shortly after the pantomime, foot sabs asked why Laura was casting hounds into dense covert and tongue-rolling (the only purpose of tongue-rolling is to rouse a fox). You won’t be surprised that the hunt didn’t have any reasonable responses to those questions either.
The support spent a while doing jumps in a field while Laura drew the northern valley around Blamphayne Cross. Sabs kept a close eye on her and she didn’t manage to do anything but lose a hound and spend half an hour looking for it. Back on the road they went around to the east of Watchcombe Moor (actually a wood) and hounds were heard briefly in cry before being gathered and taken south on the road. The day finished with the hunt manoeuvring around a slurry spreader. The farmer could have saved himself the work, given that human slurry was already scattered around his field at Parehayne.
Throughout the day, sabs were subjected to lewd and homophobic remarks from the clearly sexually deprived terriermen as well as some of the female riders. The Axe Vale are a particularly weird hunt. They don’t seem to be used to seeing people who live more than 5 miles from Colyton, so many in the hunt seemed to be unsure if they wanted to date us or fight us. We will see next time we sab them I guess!
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