Hunters and their Songs

From being a very young child, I have always loved songs and enjoyed singing them, and at junior school, in music lessons my Music Teacher Mr Garrett always encouraged me to sing. Beside the standard classical songs like ‘Who is Silvia’, ‘All in the April Evening’, ‘Did You Not Hear My Lady’, et al, he had a penchant for folk songs, songs of the sea and hunting songs. I’ve always been able to pick up and learn songs after a couple of hearings, and soon amongst my favourites were ‘The Farmers Boy’, ‘The Lincolnshire Poacher, ‘D’ye Ken John Peel’ and ‘Drink Puppy Drink’, and it was from Mr Garrett, I learnt the joys of singing hunting songs.

The Grove and Rufford Hunt
that are based at Barnby Moor, Retford

I well remember my first encounter with a hunt as a lad growing up in the early 1950s. I was staying at my Aunty Nancy’s at Mattersey Thorpe, where she lived in one of the prefabricated bungalows built during the war as emergency housing to home workers, from outside the area, who worked at the nearby munitions factory at Ranskill near Retford, where my aunt and Uncle Frank both worked.

I was sat on her back doorstep eating my lunch when a fox at full speed shot past the front of me, across the field and jumped into the nearby River Idle.

A fox shot past - Image credit https://colnevalley.blogspot.com/

I went inside and told Aunty Nancy about the fox, went back outside again a sat back down on the step to finish my sandwich, when a pack of hounds followed by three red-coated huntsmen on horseback passed me. The leading huntsman asked me if I’d seen a fox pass, I told him it had crossed the field and jumped into the river. They came back about an hour later and told me they couldn’t pick up the
scent, so bit later-on I walked down to where the fox entered the river and walked along the riverbank to see
where it had gone. I finally spied the fox about hundred yards downstream from where it went in the river,
hiding in the river under the roots of an overhanging tree.

Bob Auty with Colne Valley Beagles in 1974
Image credit D.W. Swanbury

The South Pennine Beagles of the West Riding of Yorkshire

When I moved to Batley in 1968, on my first visit to Dewsbury Folk Club, which then met at the Station Hotel in the Market Place, one of the club members, Bob Auty sang ‘Drink Puppy Drink’. After the club ended, I spoke to him about the song, and he said he was a Whipper-in with the ‘Colne Valley Beagles’ and had learnt it from hearing it sung at the after-hunt pub sings and hunt suppers. Bob knew and sang many hunt songs, and we quickly became firm friends.

Bob had a plethora of hunting songs, from both the ‘Colne Valley Beagles’ and the nearby ‘Holme Valley Beagles’, both packs hunted, hares on foot on the steep-sided Pennine valleys and moorland mostly to the south and west of Huddersfield, but they also ventured onto the nearby gritstone Lancashire border area.

The Holme Valley Beagles was the older of the two packs being formed in 1928 and the younger Colne Valley Beagles started in 1951. The Holme Valley Beagles originated from the much older Holmfirth, Honley and Meltham Hunt which hunted, and hare coursed, with trencher fed harriers. Eventually, in 1932 the Holmfirth, Honley and Meltham harriers were replaced by the much fleeter beagles.

A harrier hound (left) and the smaller beagle.
Beagles are a small scent hound bred specifically for hunting hares, and occasionally rabbits, because of their keen sense of smell and excellent tracking instincts.

The Colne Valley pack began life in 1893 as the Colne Valley Foot Harriers and became the Colne Valley Beagles in 1951.

The hunting of hares on foot was a mainly working class pursuit, where the hunt is made up of ordinary working folk from the valleys. The hunters wear traditional flat caps and the followers are mostly local mill workers, whereas the hunting of foxes by red-coated men on horseback is considered a pastime for the upper classes and landed gentry.

Hunstman in red jacket and other man on foot with hounds

Holme Valley Beagles hunting
at West Nab, near Meltham, 1988
Image credit colnevalley.blogspot.com

The traditional hunting dress for beagling on foot mostly consists of a green coat and stockings, white breeches and a green flat cap, for both the Master of the Hounds, (the Huntsman), and whippers-in, who control the pack of hounds on the day's hunt.

Perversely, the Holme Valley Beagles Huntsman always wears a red coat and riding hat, as did the original Honley Hunt from which they evolved.

Both sets of beagles hunted the blue and brown hares that were common locally, and both packs were staunch upholders of the after hunt singing tradition. Since both packs kennels were five miles apart, Colne Valley’s being at Butternab Wood in Huddersfield, and Holme Valley’s at Netherthong near Holmfirth, the hunts whippers-in and followers tended to have a foot in both camps.

Their repertoire of songs also overlapped, but some of the songs sung by the two factions had slight variations.
Both packs of beagles published their own songbook, containing all the lyrics of their songs. The Holme Valley Beagles published the third edition of ‘Hunters Songs’ in 1948, it was a revised and enlarged edition of the original 1887 Holmfirth, Honley and Meltham Hunt songbook.
The Colne Valley Beagles songbook, published in 2005 was called ‘Scarlet and Green, Hunting in the Colne Valley’. It contained over one hundred hunting songs, monologues, many illustrations and reminiscences of bygone hunt meets.

The Hunting Act of 2004 banning the hunting of wild mammals, foxes, deer, hares and mink with dogs, and hare coursing had a huge impact on the two beagle packs. The cost of the upkeep and maintenance of the kennels, huntsman’s house and committee rooms had been rising steadily for years and was slowly becoming prohibitive.

Photo of hunstmen on foot with a pack of beagles

The Holme and Colne Valley Beagles pack set off on Boxing Day 2013 on their first combined meet.
Image credit: Examiner Live

The ban was the last straw, so to reduce running costs the Holme Valley pack joined forces with the Ecclesfield Beagles, and their 17th century farmhouse and kennels at Upperthong were auctioned off on 19th October 2005 at the Huntsman Inn above Holmfirth.
In 2013 the Holme Valley and Colne Valley Beagles decided to join forces, so the two packs could cooperate in legal hunting activities. The Holme Valley pack of hounds moved into the existing Colne Valley Kennels at Butternab Road in Huddersfield and the combined pack is now known as the ‘Holme and Colne Valley Beagles’.

Following the 2004 Hunting Act, packs of beagles, bassets and harriers can still legally meet, but have switched to hunting artificial (rabbit or hare scent) pre-laid trails, they are also allowed to hunt rabbits, flushing hares to guns or birds of prey, or any injured hares following hare shoots.

Photo of huntsmen and hounds outside a pub

The Holme Valley Beagles about to set off
on Boxing Day 1986
Image credit: @TarkId=57766 Huddersfield Examiner

Hunt Meets

The hunting season runs from September to March and there are normally two hunt meets a week, mid-week on a Tuesday and at the weekend on a Saturday. They always start and finish at a local pub and the landlord usually provides some sort of refreshment during the day for the hunters. The days hunt was divided in two parts, the morning hunt begins at 10 o’clock and ends about midday then its back to the pub for a drink and some refreshment. After a break of about an hour the afternoon hunt begins, and they hunt until the twilight falls. Not every hunt meet finishes with a traditional after hunt sing.

Book cover showing hunstman with beagles

The Colne Valley Beagles Songbook
‘Scarlet and Green, History of Three Centuries Hunting in the Colne Valley‘
by Simon Shaw & Ken Green 1995

It was normally later on a Saturday Evening after a day hunting that the hunt members would congregate at the pub for a sing.
Besides the songs in the ‘Hunters Songbooks’ extolling the joys of, or chronicling an outstanding day of hunting the hunts singers had many more songs in their repertoire and over the years many new songs were added.
If a singer introduced a new song and it had good tune and a rousing chorus, if the other singers asked him to perform it the following week it became part of the hunt’s repertoire. Some of the older singers had a wealth of songs and recitations, notably Arthur Howard and Frank Hinchcliffe and they could easily have carried the whole evening's sing with their own songs.

Album cover showing huntsmen with hounds

A Fine Hunting day, album cover.

In the early 1970s two recordings were made that capture the atmosphere of traditional after hunt sings. The first session was recorded at the Stanhope Arms on 17th November 1972 and the second at the Village Hall, Netherthong on 24th March 1973.
The recordings were released on the album ‘A Fine Hunting Day, Songs of the Holme Valley Beagles’ on the 1975 Leader record label, LEE 4056.

On the two evenings each of the singers sang their own personal song, the one that they were identified by, and everyone present joined in the choruses. All the songs recorded have a piano accompaniment provided by Fred Woodcock who had been playing for the hunt sings for over forty years. The very last song on the record, and it was also the very last song to be recorded at the two sessions, was a rendition by Arthur Howard of the ‘Pratty Flowers’ or as it is more locally known the ‘Holmfirth Anthem’.

Arthur Howard was born in 1902 into a sheep farming family and learnt his songs from his family, and he regularly sang them at meetings of the local Shepherds Society and at the hunt suppers. A selection of his songs can be listened to on the record ‘Merry Mountain Child, Arthur Howard 1981’ on the Hill & Dale Record label, HD 006.

Holme Valley Tradition left to right
Ernest Yates,Will Noble, John Cocking,
and Barry Bridgewater.

The Holme Valley Tradition

In the early 1980s, most of the older singers and the accompanist on the first recordings had passed away, so to preserve the tradition, four of the younger hunt members formed a group and they became the custodians of the old songs of both the Holme Valley and Colne Valley Beagles. They called themselves ‘The Holme Valley Tradition’, and they had learnt the songs from the older singers Arthur and James Howard, Frank Hinchcliffe, John Kaye, Cyril Ford and Harrison Hoyle.

The upholders of the songs are Will Noble, stonemason and builder who learnt many of his songs from Arthur Howard. Barry Bridgewater, a drystone waller and former Huntsman of the Holme Valley Beagles. John Cocking, also a dry stone waller and former Kennelman at the Colne Valley Beagles, and Ernest Yates, the most senior and experienced hunter and singer amongst the group.

Holme Valley Tradition: Bright Rosy Morning
Credit: @folkbluesnbeyond on Youtube

The Holme Valley tradition can be heard singing unaccompanied many of the songs on their 1985 record ‘Bright Rosy Morning, The Holme Valley Tradition’ on the Hill & Dale Record HD 851.

The Songs

There are great many songs in the two Hunters Songbooks and the recordings that I could have chosen to include in this section of this songbook, but this tome is supposed to be collection of the songs that have been in my repertoire over the years. Some I have sung regularly and others less frequently but they are included here because of the memories attached to them.

I've added the individual song pages to different sections of my Song Wordbook on this website, according to the chronology of when I learned them, and I've included the links to them here.

The first hunters song is, 'Drink, Puppy. Drink’ which I sang in a concert in 1953 when I was eleven years old, and the love of the song was rekindled when I first met my old friend Bob Auty.

The second song is the humorous song ‘The Village Pump’ which I learnt from hearing it sung regularly by members of the hunt.

The third is the song about a priest who loved to hunt ‘Doctor Mack’, it’s to the tune of ‘The Vicar of Bray’ which I also had to sing whilst at school.

The fourth song ‘Squire Sands’ appears in the Lake District hunters songbook ‘Songs of the Six Fell Packs’, I learnt it though from a recording made in the mid 1960’s by my old mate Geoff Wood, and I have sung it ever since.

The last one ‘The Keeper’ though not a Yorkshire song, I’ve included for old times sake.

Sources
Beagling - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
Examiner Live Holme and Colne Valley Beagles to form a new association
Holme and Colne Valley Beagles Kennels - Wildlife Guardian
Colne Valley Beagles and other things of interest colnevalley.blogspot.com

About Mick

Mick Haywood is a traditional folk singer & folk song collector who has run and organised folk clubs and festivals for many years. He now lives in Whitby, North Yorkshire.

Mick Haywood's Mainly Yorkshire Miscellany

Batley Years - Article