| My daughter Abi turned thirteen recently and as head | | | | established families and sometimes by wealthy |
| of the family she thinks it's about time her parents | | | | newcomers. Clients pay the equivalent of the price of |
| became vegetarians. She has been a convert, with | | | | a good second hand car for a few days shooting. We |
| occasional lapses, for around two years. I'm certainly | | | | used to live in a farmhouse right in the middle of one of |
| not against the idea. We hardly eat meat anyway; just | | | | these estates. Pheasants were as common as |
| the odd bacon sandwich and an extremely rare steak | | | | pigeons and sparrows are in town. It was not at all |
| (rare in the numerical rather than the French culinary | | | | unusual to see two or three elderly gents stroll past |
| sense), but it would be good to lose that feeling of guilt | | | | our house, stepping stiff-legged over barbed wire |
| experienced when a cow looks at you over the fence | | | | fences (ouch), with their broken shotguns cradled over |
| with those mournful eyes. | | | | one arm and their labradors at heel. |
| Actually the cow is not at all sad - it's probably | | | | Now, you might think I'm out of sympathy with the |
| wondering if you are going to pass it some of that long | | | | hunting fraternity, and you'd be right, up to a point, |
| green grass on the other side of the fence, but the | | | | although it's true I did a lot of fishing in my early teens, |
| guilt is real enough. | | | | and I once owned a beautiful .22 BSA air rifle with an |
| Of course, not everybody feels that way. In another | | | | oiled stock and a rifled barrel. I gave up fishing when I |
| life I used to be a musician and I remember driving to a | | | | discovered girls, and I exchanged the rifle for my first |
| gig with a black American blues singer called Johnnie | | | | guitar and never looked back. |
| Mars. I pointed out some ducks which were flying low | | | | As a young teenager, part of my reading was about |
| over the band bus in formation. Johnnie looked up and | | | | the safari hunters of Africa and India, last of a dying |
| said yep, he thought they were mighty fine, and after a | | | | breed. One of the most interesting of these was Jim |
| moment, 'Especially with roast potatoes'. | | | | Corbett. He became well known as a writer and his |
| This was said without a trace of irony. He told me | | | | best book was probably 'The Man-Eaters of Kumaon'. |
| later, with the same straight face, that he was well | | | | He had respect and even love for the man-eaters that |
| known in East Poland and Latvia, which reminded me | | | | he had to shoot. He was not just a hunter; he was |
| irresistibly of Dorothy Parker's line about being famous | | | | also a naturalist and an early conservationalist, who |
| in two continents - 'Greenland and Iceland'. | | | | warned against 'the indiscriminate hunting of the tiger, |
| Anyway, as I said, I'd like to become a vegetarian, but I | | | | which if not controlled would eventually deprive India of |
| think you have to pick the right time. It's like giving up | | | | the finest of her fauna'. |
| smoking, something I finally managed to do ten years | | | | About this time I discovered two great American |
| ago after many attempts. One day, all the conditions | | | | writers; Hemingway via 'The Green Hills of Africa', |
| were right and I stopped, just like that. | | | | written in 1933, and William Faulkner through 'The Bear'. |
| That's how I imagine it would be when giving up meat, | | | | Written in 1942 as a long short story, 'The Bear' is |
| although as far as I know, meat is not addictive. There'll | | | | Faulkner at his prophetic best. It's about a group of |
| be no retrievals of half used packs of bacon from the | | | | men and boys who go on a hunting trip every year', |
| bin, or furtive trips to the corner shop, ('Just going to | | | | and each time they have to drive further to find the |
| take the dog around the block, dear. Won't be long'). | | | | wilderness as the Mississippi Delta shrinks. At the time |
| These ruminations (isn't that what cows do? - Ed) | | | | the story was written, conservation was not at all |
| were brought on by the fact that we've recently | | | | fashionable, nor was it twenty years later when I read |
| moved house. We're now twelve miles further north | | | | it, but it made me realize that there could be a link |
| and within sight of the Moray Firth. (In Scotland an | | | | between hunting and conservation. |
| estuary is called a firth, so for example we have the | | | | I have no desire to hunt or shoot any animal, but I'm |
| Firth of Forth - see?). Anyway, in those few miles, | | | | hardly in a position to criticize anyone else while I still |
| we've moved out of the Highlands and onto the | | | | eat meat. The arguments in favour of hunting are not |
| coastal plain, which drops gently down to the sea, | | | | easy to refute. For instance, it's claimed that without |
| about six miles away, giving us a clear view of the | | | | foxhunting, farmers would quickly eradicate the fox |
| few solitary cottages and farmhouses in the area, plus | | | | and that in Scotland the Red deer population would |
| the remains of Duffus castle and the Lossiemouth | | | | soar without adequate control. |
| lighthouse. | | | | Maybe, but I can't help thinking Oscar Wilde got it right |
| All this is very different from the Highlands, with its hills | | | | when he wrote about 'The unspeakable in pursuit of |
| and valleys, rough ravines and forests. Almost a | | | | the uneatable'. Besides, as a solution to the deer |
| different country, almost a different people. Before the | | | | population problem, I'm for the re-introduction of the |
| Jacobite uprising in the 18th century and the | | | | wolf, absent from the Scottish Highlands since before |
| subsequent destruction of the clan system, the 'wild, | | | | Bonnie Prince Charlie went home to Italy. This is a |
| wykked hieland men' used to swoop down onto the | | | | serious and considered proposition, now championed |
| coastal plain, steal all the cattle they could cope with, | | | | by the Green Party, and it feels right to me. It works in |
| burn a few cottages and disappear back into the hills. | | | | Montana - why not here in the Highlands? In the |
| Well, the clans are no longer a force, and instead there | | | | meantime, at least I've moved out of earshot of the |
| are large shooting estates, sometimes owned by old | | | | shotguns on the estate. |