As the result of a hip operation (arthritis, but I encourage people to think it was made necessary by a riding accident), I won’t be able to follow hounds again before the ban comes into force next Friday. I used to hunt as a child but gave up the chase in my ‘Ho Ho Ho Chi-Minh, we shall fight and we shall win’ chanting and marching days — by which time I had come to share Oscar Wilde’s feelings about ‘the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable’. But once the bandwagon for the ban started to roll in earnest I found myself with Voltaire and joined the fray once again in the belief that even unspeakables have rights. Anyway I loved it all over again: the waiting, the listening, the uncertainty, the unknown, the freedom, the thrill of the fear, the changing landscape — and the company. I chose to keep all this to myself because I had to chair endless debates between the warring parties on Radio Four’s Any Questions? and Any Answers? as well as my ITV Sunday programme. Now, sadly, that debate is merely a matter for the courts. But I wonder how long it will be before we move on from hunting to fishing, forcing Jeremy Paxman et al. into a similar quandary.
The surgery left me on crutches. Since I had to be in London and could not get myself on to the boat where I usually stay when I am up from the country, I spent a few days at the Savoy. The hotel must have the best view of the Thames in all London. At night all is a-glitter except for the glossy, dark still of the water. At last I understand why, 40 years ago, in his commentary at Churchill’s funeral, my father spoke with such sentiment about ‘this great waterway of ours’.
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