Date: Saturday 17th October 1998
Time: 8am
Location: Old Surrey & Burstow Hunt, Chartwell, Kent

Thanks to a tip off from a villager, we don't have to follow the hound van or horseboxes this week. The hunt are having their annual "Jorrocks" hunt breakfast (named after a fictional hunting character) so after spending the morning trying to kill as many foxes as possible, they will retire to a cold barn to eat as many dead animals as possible. Great!

Anyway, I get there at 6.30am to spray around all the coverts I know they hunt through from this meet, and find myself in the middle of the worst rain so far this autumn. To make matters worse, I hear on the phone that the clutch on the sab van has finally given up, and I'm gonna be the only one there, at least for the first hour. I decide to play things low key and stick to spraying and false holloas to confuse the hounds.

Luckily, not only can I call the hounds over at will, the huntsman can`t seem to see me in the rain and wet woodland. Twice in half an hour, a fox passes within feet of me and I manage to spray right behind it. In the woods below Puddledock, they get onto one which they hunt around back into the village and they have to leave it.

9.30am and a van load of sabs turn up so my confidence is restored! With more people, we can be more open about what we're up to, and the hunt realise I've been there all along - they wondered where the smell of citronella was coming from! The hunt turn south towards a covert they always draw, but I've already sprayed it, so it should be enough to put them off.

We get to the covert (a small wood of about 1 acre) and the hunt surround it with riders and followers to scare any foxes back into the wood to be killed. At this point the old bill arrive, and make a right pig's ear of telling us what they are going to do to us. They swap from aggravated trespass to section 5 of the public order act to breach of the peace and back again. These are meant to uphold the law, but they appear only to be able to act on the instructions of the hunt masters whose orders they take as gospel truth. A quick exchange to let them know that we know exactly where we stand, and they back off - suitably embarrassed and muddy.

The hunt are determined to kill the fox in this wood, and things are getting fraught. There is little we can do at this point except encourage the hounds out of the wood, but with so many riders surrounding it, we don't succeed. After nearly an hour of patchy hunting, we hear the huntsman blow for a kill, and we rush in to try to stop them getting the "trophies" at least - they wanted to cut its tail and head off. This we do, but it's no victory. The fox was no cub, but in very good condition before its mauling.

The huntsman has the cheek to say of the mangled corpse that "it didn't want to leave, did it?" - well would you after finding every exit blocked by baying hounds and riders? On my way home after the end of the hunt, as the hunters were tucking into their breakfast, I had to pass back through the wood where they killed. Underneath the torn undergrowth where the fox had been ripped apart, I could see the entrance to its earth which it was obviously trying to get into when caught by the hounds - it had been deliberately blocked up with straw and mud by the hunt. I can only imagine what that fox had gone through being chased around its home wood trying to escape - being whipped back by hunters and then finding its earth stopped up by some callous hunt lackey.

Everyone on that hunt that day (and every day they go out) should be held responsible for the terror and pain inflicted on that innocent animal. I won't forget it, and will be doing my best to stop them killing again this week, what about you? With more sabs out, we could have forced them to abandon the hunting of that wood, so what are you waiting for?

The pictures included were taken on the day, and should serve as a reminder of what foxhunting is actually about when all "they" portray is red coats, stirrup cups and "jolly good fun".