To the Manor Drawn

by Leslie Ann Bosher

  ‘Oh, sorry love, we stop serving at 10 am,’ she said in a tired tone, without a smile.

  ‘Then may we just have coffee?’ we inquired in a congenial manner.

  ‘’Fraid not love, we don’t start serving coffee until 11 am.’ Times have finally changed, though sadly not everywhere. Meal hours in the countryside can still be highly regimented; however, on this occasion we were in luck. Breakfast of two, four-minute poached eggs served with brown toast on the side for me and the ‘Full Monty’ for Bill stoked us up for the day. Once fed and relaxed we had nothing to do for the next six hours; the afternoon was ours to construct, an empty canvas to create. Driving out of Oakham into the countryside we noticed a yellow and black ‘Polo Today’ sign hammered into the grassy verge. We knew instantly how we would spend the rest of our Sunday.

  As I have previously mentioned, my knowledge of horses is elementary. It begins with ‘look up for the raised tail’ and concludes with ‘look down for the result’. Beyond that, I can only wonder why anyone would own an animal that requires constant feeding, exercising and mucking out, not to mention tack, horse trailers and vets. I’m more in awe of the owners who foot the bills to maintain these wonderful animals than the beasts themselves. In my estimation that made me just the right type of spectator for a polo match.

  Every driver in the bucolic English countryside can be counted on to carry certain items in their car. Unlike in America, it is not necessary to produce a driver’s licence. It is essential, however, to have a proper picnic blanket, two comfy folding bucket chairs, a thermos of scalding hot tea, previously mixed to exact proportions before leaving home, and reading material in case of inclement weather. Unknowingly we had arrived with the quintessential kit for polo watching in the boot of our car. Now if we could only understand the nuances of the sport before someone spotted us for what we were, city folk dressed up as tweedies.

  The sound of horses’ hooves as they thundered past, racing from one end of the field to the other, was exhilarating even for the novice. This particular fixture was the Wilkinson Sword Tournament. As the sun played peek-a-boo with the cumulus clouds we found ourselves watching the sport with eyes barely open, soaking up what would surely be the last of the summer sun. Nodding off for a moment, I took a mind-trip back to Afghanistan, an unforgettable country I had visited many years before. I was reminiscing about a tournament put on by tribesmen proudly demonstrating their horsemanship on the dusty desert plains when a drifting scent of freshly brewed tea broke the spell. A woman with a plummy English voice and cut-glass vowels beckoned us to the social tent where refreshments were laid out. Displayed on a long table were homemade ham and tomato sandwiches on thin white bread, fresh baked scones with blackberry jam and a large dollop of clotted cream, crispy hot sausage rolls and wedges of sponge cake. Edwin, the club chairman, approached us looking stylish in his riding fatigues.

  ‘Do join our members and players for tea. This is our season finale. Let’s see if we can entice you to join up for next year,’ he said, extending one hand in friendship while the other hand presented a plate of nibbles. With only the slightest hint of coercion, we were delighted to part with our £40 membership fee.

  This is often the way new acquaintances are formed in the countryside. Unlike in London, where a formal dinner party was de rigueur for meeting friends or potential networking partners, nothing quite so formal was required in Rutland. After many years living in England, Bill and I knew that any potential friends would first assume we were both American. After all, Bill had spent fourteen years living in the United States and had acquired what he termed a mid-Atlantic or Sargasso Sea accent. I, on the other hand, retained all the characteristics of my North Carolina upbringing. My diction contained juicy fat ‘a’ sounds mingled with words without a final ‘e’ as though they had simply fallen into outer space.

  The ‘meet and greet’ process seldom varied. It began with the same question, usually directed to Bill.

  ‘Are you over from the States on holiday?’

  ‘No, we’re actually displaced Londoners,’ Bill would explain.

  Not sure that his answer was entirely convincing, he would begin to drop obscure place names only an Englishman would know. The conversation would eventually conclude with a joke about Bognor Regis, Bill’s birthplace. Everyone loved to have a laugh about ‘Bugger Bognor’, an unfortunate quote attributed to King George V when his wife offered to take him back to the town to convalesce after an extended illness. Clearly, for the king, one visit was enough.

  Continuing the conversation Bill would inquire of his newfound friend, ‘So, what part of the country do you hail from?’

  ‘I am a Yorkshire man myself,’ would come a likely reply. ‘Really, it’s been years since I last visited the county, but I remember a wonderful little pub called the Hog and Doss somewhere between the villages of Tinkleberry and Flotswhistleon-Hoot. Does it still have the sign outside the door stating they serve children, fried, grilled or boiled?’ Bill’s startling memory usually convinced his new friend that he was, indeed, one of them.

  It was now up to me to follow suit. With ease, I would try to explain my way into his good graces, ending with my pièce de résistance, British citizenship. Once these formalities were behind us, we were usually deemed worthy to be engaged in more edifying conversation.

  Although we thoroughly enjoyed the polo event, we realized that our time in London had left us poorly prepared for understanding the equestrian world, so with that in mind we purchased tickets to the upcoming Burghley Horse Trials. This splashy, three-day event is the largest annual crowd puller in the area. Members of the Royal Family often grace the competition either as participants or spectators while thousands of non-royals decant their horses and dogs from purpose-built trailers. Others arrive using every means possible from mobile home to bicycle, chartered bus to helicopter. Many just walk.

  Billed as ‘The World’s Favourite Horse Trials’, it could not take place in a more beautiful setting than that of the grounds of the magnificent Burghley House estate, the home of the Cecil family for over 400 years. This, the largest and grandest home of the first Elizabethan period, was designed by William Cecil, Lord High Treasurer of England to Queen Elizabeth I. Eighteen opulent staterooms display treasured works of art, furniture, tapestries, textiles, carvings and ceramics collected over the centuries. Thanks to Lady Victoria Leatham, a knowledgeable woman in her own right and current keeper of the family keys, we were able to visit Burghley and the extensive Capability Brown park and lakeside sculpture gardens as often as we liked as members of the Friends group. To have such an outstanding array of riches within a few miles of home was to be spoiled in the extreme.

  I am not quite sure what percentage of the attendance at the horse trials are there for equine pursuits or pashminas and perfumes, champagne and caviar, but it is a fact that at Burghley, Mohammed does come to the mountain. Boulevards of trade stands display many of London’s finest fashions to the country set while other merchants target the more serious outdoorsman.

  Bill and I toddled up to a saddler, not that we had a horse to mount, then went into Woof Wear to inspect the latest in canine couture for our invisible dog. We eyed the all-weather waxed jackets, shooting clothes, rifles, rods and riding boots and drifted into sheer fantasy when a clerk tried to sell us a vacuum machine for our non-existent paddock and stable. Thank goodness the champagne buzz wore off before we could sign our name to a purchase order for a custom fitted, luxury horse trailer.

  The real fun, and for us a dumbfoundingly new experience, was to watch nearly 150 horses compete in the cross country and dressage events. While Bill ventured off to purchase a program, I engaged a twelve-year-old girl, dressed in full riding gear, in conversation. I posed a question to her.

  ‘Explain to me please, why a horse would want to jump over an obstacle the size of a locomotive, plough across a 1.5-metre bristly hedge of tortuous thickets into an icy pond, leap over a fully laden picnic table, and cr
ash through a garden conservatory before jumping into a ring of fire [red carnations]?’

  It was clear from her stunned expression that she had never quite thought of the cross country event in that manner. I wondered if perhaps it might have been something I said that made her scurry off to find her mother. Is it possible there is still a bit of truth in Winston Churchill’s old saying that we are ‘two nations divided by a common language’?

  Chapter 29

  The end of the season

  Email To: Kathy and Ronnie

  From: Leslie Ann

  Date: 9 October

  Subject: Strange things are happening

  Dear Kathy and Ronnie,

  You won’t believe this. Bill and I woke up this morning to find a flock, or is it herd, of sheep in the front pasture of the Hall. We don’t know where they came from or how they got there. They just popped up like weeds. I’m not sure this is normal. I’m beginning to wonder what is anymore. Yesterday deer came bolting across the fields and this afternoon I saw a posse of men in red jackets galloping across the horizon in pursuit of a fox. I think we are living in a zoo.

  I can’t wait for you to see for yourselves.

  Leslie Ann

  Waiting for winter to come is a bit like watching a warm, glowing fire slowly fade and dwindle. The crackling wood softly tapers to a gentle glow, then to a listless burn. Drowsy cinders begin to turn white, then gold, grey then cold and dark like the light in the afternoon. It’s the time of year you either love or hate, as it signals the end of British Summer Time. Cool and airy pubs that once had their front doors flung open for the summer trade now ready their inglenooks for winter-warming logs. Al fresco lunches once served in the garden are now gladly enjoyed indoors. Picnic tables showing the wear and tear of too many boozy, big-bellied drinkers and the scratchings of lovers who no longer love are carted away by publicans for a well-deserved refurbishment. Parsnips, swedes and Brussels sprouts replace long-fingered green Norfolk asparagus on menus. Everything seems to be preparing for the annual hibernation.

  On the home front, football shirts spring forth from hot dryers fresh and fluffed for the season’s matches. Woolly pullovers, companion to all who venture outdoors, are coaxed from the back of drawers to replace soft, embroidered camisoles and popular white T-shirts. Television schedules change to reflect longer days indoors. With the click of a remote control, lavish period dramas burst onto the screen. Endless travel programs are launched to whet the appetite of future travellers seeking sexy new destinations and hot hotel deals. Sun blistering beaches and ptomaine toting tavernas are always an easy sell to those facing the prospect of a long winter.

  Eventually the blue, humid sky of summer gives way to hues of soft, yellowy orange. Sunsets, once seen from our north-facing roof patio are now only visible from our west-facing dining room windows. Forests also begin to change, running up flags of russet browns and copper tones. Crisp winds tickle the armpits of half-naked trees. Squirrels riffle through the autumn debris sifting for any seeds that might have fallen on the ground. Mornings and evenings are often misty as the sun slowly begins to lose intensity. The summer’s panic to prune, trim, weed and maintain a garden is switched over to autopilot, not to be fully engaged again until spring. The soil, having given up her bounty to farmers and gardeners, now prepares for annual retirement. You can sense a heaving, almost audible sigh of contentment for all the effort that has gone into the long growing season.

  In the side garden, overlooked by our two bedroom windows, stands an exotic gingko tree wilfully holding on to her last dozen fan-shaped, umber leaves. Her spiny branches look like an umbrella that has encountered a gale-force wind and lost.

  Beneath the tree is a sprawling crochet quilt of invisible threads producing phallic, plump fungi. Harnessing the urge to turn the garden into a football field by kicking their tops in the air, I decide instead to check local knowledge for edible varieties, then set my fingers to work harvesting the young, firm puffballs. These meaty little fellows make a succulent topping when gently sautéed in fresh butter and layered over slices of brown toast. For me this is a triumph of nature over need. The junket to the supermarket has been averted for yet another day.

  One of the several planned farewells to summer is held in the picturesque village of Uffington, where a motley crew of scarecrows is assembled to welcome autumn. Nothing here is as ordinary as a scrawny straw man with a pole up his axis guarding against scavenging crows. No, these sophisticated bale men, made by local children to raise money for the church, are excellent fundraisers. Standing 3 metres tall is Cereal Killer, with balaclava-covered face, arms of Shredded Wheat, legs of Corn Flakes and a head of Kellogg’s Rice Krispies. Rivalling the massive size of Bilbao’s flower-encrusted Puppy, protector of the Guggenheim Museum, is Pound Hound weighing in at eighteen bales and six straws. As the official guard dog at the church door, he reminds all who pass by that agriculture can be as much about humour as it can be about profit.

  We discovered, however, as one door closes for the summer another opens for the autumn. Wishing to be a part of our community, it was essential that we again took advantage of the outstretched hand of friendship and local knowledge. So, with keen interest we accepted an invitation to attend our first hunt, organized in Toft, a slip of a village only minutes away. This amazingly colourful and ancient sport once referred to by Oscar Wilde as the ‘unspeakable chasing the uneatable’, is part of our landscape from late October to early March.

  To the untrained eye the circus and the hunt have much in common: the vibrant tones of the body-hugging costumes, the smell of the animals prancing and primed for performance, the confidence and demeanor of the riders and the sense that at some point it will all come together in a crashing crescendo. As Neil Coleman, one of the chaps in a red coat, explained while discussing the adversarial role of the hound and fox, ‘Everyone has great respect and affection for these intelligent animals. The point of the hunt is really the chase and not the kill. You’ll never catch a good fox. Good luck to him, I say.’ Suddenly, with the blare of the hunting horn cutting through the crisp morning air, horses and hounds were off.

  The wily vulpes vulpes, better known as the red fox, is a cunning pest and a felicitous forager of fortune both in rural and urban landscapes. In fact, the country set grant him almost equal status with the horse. Thanks to public relations gurus, an image of Aesop’s reynard can resemble a wide range of characters from the cross-dressing lech in Grimm’s Little Red Riding Hood to the aging lothario, former president Bill Clinton, a grey-haired fox still on the prowl. Love them or hate them, foxes, as green-belt city dwellers know, will likely come to a nearby allotment, garden, field, farm or garbage bin at some point in time. It is estimated that there are more than 30,000 urban foxes roaming the United Kingdom looking for morsels to eat, from mice to nappies. The latter, I understand, are a special delicacy. It’s in summer that the young juvenile delinquent cubs go off to be masters of their own hunt, dicing up guinea pigs and gardens alike. Large house pets, however, are seldom at risk and there have even been rumours of affectionate nocturnal snoggings between the species. In the metropolitan environment, attempts have been made to control this predator with chemical repellents, motion-activated water scarecrows and relocation. These urban corrective methods would not make a dent, however, in the countryside population and thus over time means have been developed, with great success, to maintain the necessary numbers while concurring with conservationist principles.

  The reality of the countryside is far from the romantic notion that both beauty and lushness are a divine right, a gift from God. The influence of agriculture and hunting has clearly dictated the lay of the land. As humans began to perfect the principles of animal husbandry by incorporating fencing, hunting for food became less of a priority while tracking vermin that prayed on livestock became an economic necessity. This cycle has continued for the past 300 years.

  What Bill and I did not understand, coming from the city with
a rather biased press, was the symbiotic relationship between the hunter, the farmer and the landscape. Lose one and the land can become vulnerable. It’s only through cooperative preservation that the fragile balance of the countryside can be maintained. Just as cities need tending, so do woods and fields.

  The role of farmers is vital in this process. By giving their consent for the hunt to ride across their land, they acknowledge the threat to their earnings from ‘Charlie’, the name affectionately given to a fox. At the same time, farmers affirm that they are not willing to use less humane deterrents such as poisoning, trapping or shooting. In return for this service farmers maintain hedgerows, build strong fences and leave corners of fields for foxes to roam. Hunters, by controlling the number of foxes, not only ensure the preservation of the strongest and their young, they also help to conserve the woodlands. As James Barclay, joint Master of the Cottesmore Hunt, said, ‘The farmers and landowners in Rutland are wonderfully supportive to us and we have to look after them in return.’

  No one is really quite sure if hunting was invented for the benefit of the English aristocracy or whether the aristocracy was created to avail the fox but today it is a popular sport in England with 270 registered hunts. Americans enjoy the sport in thirty-seven states and, along with Ireland, France and Australia (where the European fox was introduced in 1855), have registered their shock at the government’s legislation to ban the hunting of foxes, allowing only tracking of scents and dispatching by shooting. The heated debate has years to run with legal challenges already on the docket. In the meantime, if it looks, smells and sounds like a hunt, it most likely will be a hunt. In England the traditional ‘tally-ho’ call to mount has been replaced by a defiant, and resounding ‘fox off’ to the government.