When I was a boy (I never thought I would use that expression because I feel the same today as I did when I was 10) I watched and loved a programme on Southern Television called Out of Town with Jack Hargreaves.
In it Jack would roam around the countryside looking at life from a countryman's perspective. Then he would sit in his shed and tell us all the stories about it.
In a way, because of the era Jack Hargreaves lived in he kind of died with many of the rural activities that he loved so much. Before the politically correct world came a long you would see him at a pheasant shoot or watching the hounds in the New Forest, where he used to live in pursuit of the fox.
Perhaps, on another day he would be on his hands and knees in a hide shooting pigeon as they flew in to feed on a rape field or out with a couple of Poachers turned Gamekeeper as they set the ferret or polecat down the burrows to flush out rabbits for either netting or shooting.
It was the existence that I dreamed about and I found the program very romantic and indeed I did have a brief spell as a Gamekeeper come Gardener at lower Roundhurst Farm* at the bottom of Blackdown, Haslemere.
Oh I digress again (sigh!)
But what made me think of Jack Hargreaves was the piece by Richard Loader on his newly launched AtWag website where he writes about hedge laying in the New Forest, where coincidently, the same as Jack, Richard and his wife Sue hail from too.
Country crafts and old techniques have made a bit of a return in the last few years due to grants and apprenticeships but somehow for me I can never imagine them today as I did as a boy with the softly spoken Jack with trusty pipe telling the tale. My memories are that old they are in sepia.
And in Out of Town fashion.
Cheerio!
* A little note of interest regarding Lower Roundhurst Farm. The estate was the residence of Colonel Messel who was served in the Household cavalry. In the summer the horses were shipped to his estate for a holiday and it was here that Sefton, the horse maimed by the IRA, would come for his vacation before being injured in the bombing.
It is also interesting to note that the metal sign that hangs outside the farm drive is still the same as when I painted it in 1982!
The farm is set in the beautiful surroundings under the imposing Blackdown Hill accessible from Tennysons lane. If you look up from Roundhurst you can see the house, Aldworth Where Alfred Lord Tennyson lived.
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