Nearly half a million people arrived by train, car and coach. Fishermen, falconers, ferreters, wildfowlers, game Shots, gillies and, of course, people who hunted turned out in 2002 to oppose a ban on hunting with hounds. How had this oldest of sports become indefensible to the masses?
The answer is that too little was done too late; arrogance, if you want a simple answer. Along with politicians, actors, the good and the great, were grassroots people from both town and country. They may well have never followed hounds, lifted a gun nor cast a fly, but they identified with a right to do so and perhaps understood a little about the countryside. They all knew that where foxhunting was concerned there was a swift death, no wounding and an overpopulated…
