A Time Gone By - The Grand Old Hunts With Sir Jocelyn Lucas

by Peggy Grayson (edited by Laurie Crouch)

There are not many people that have hunted with a pack of terriers. One of the few was Sir Jocelyn Lucas Bt, Mc, MP (Bt= Baron, Mc= Member of Commons, MP= Member of Parliament).

He was an old time hunting fan and sportsman. Sir Jocelyn loved sports of all kind and a big part of his childhood was spent hunting rabbits and fishing. As a grown up, he was a diligent hunter and also a very good horseman. On one occasion he was “Master of the Harriers” in Norfolk. For several years he used a pack of Otter hounds and Sealyhams. The Sealyhams were used for badger and fox hunting.

Sir Jocelyn was a first class hunter and was often invited as a guest to big hunts in the country. He bred Sealyham terriers during most of his life. Many of his breedings were shown with success. One particular  was the famous Ch Edwalton Chum. All of the Sealyhams were taught to kill at an early age. He took a dog to an enclosed pasture where there was a living rat in a crate. After a couple of days he let the rat out and the puppies, some of them no older than four months of age, killed the rat immediately.

At the end of the 1940’s I was hired as a kennel manager of the Ilmer kennel in Waterford. He had another kennel in Margate, Herts. The manager there was Mrs. Plummer.

The Ilmer kennel had a lot of bitches, 10-12 males, and puppies of all ages plus some strange “dogs” including ‘Speagels’ – as we called them - a mix between a Beagle dog and a black cocker Spaniel bitch. These puppies had a fantastic sense of smell and a very powerful bark when they were out working. We had several Beagle bitches plus dear Rioter. He was probably the biggest Basset there ever was.

Rioter had his kennel at the front side of the house and warned all of us when someone was entering the premises. Nights with a full moon he got the whole kennel to join in a “song” that was both very loud and very sad. I had my spaniels living in the kennel too and a red cat that was balancing between life and death when he walked on the roof above the kennel runs which made the terriers furious since they felt offended over his “catwalk” and how arrogant he was. We were all convinced that one day the cat would fall down in to one of the runs – but he never did. The old Sealyhams that were not used for hunting anymore lived inside the house where they slept inside on the sofa. They accepted the cat as one of their own.

Shows were rare, but during September to March every year there were hunts at least twice a week. In those days, England had a lot of mansions and big farms that were privately owned in Herefordshire. The country landscape had not yet been destroyed by buildings and highways as it is today. Sir Jocelyn and his dogs had always more invitations to the hunts then he could possible accept. But he accepted as many as possible in spite of that he was a very busy man and an efficient member of the parliament - especially when it came to animals and their well-being.

On the hunting days we had to leave home at about 8-8:30 am which meant that all the kennel staff was up very early. We had to pick out ten Sealyhams – of course no pregnant bitches or bitches in season could come. It was also very important that we not pick out two males that could not stand each other.

Sir Jocelyn had a big American van and we loaded the dogs in the back together with the old Speagle and one of the kennel girls. I sat in the front seat. The dogs were always very excited since they knew what was going on and what they could expect for the day. It was often enough that one of the dogs growled for a minor thing that we had a big dogfight in the back. (Poor kennel girl!) I have a lot of memories of these fights since Sir Jocelyn had to stop the car and we all would run out of the car to bring the dogs on the road and try to separate the fighters from each other. Just think about it if you had to do the same in today’s traffic! These hunts brought us to many nice mansions that were always situated miles from civilization. Very often Mrs Plummer joined us and the day’s host often invited his friends to join the hunt.

One impressing mansion that we visited almost every month was owned by a diplomat of some sort. It was the place we liked the least since he often invited other diplomats and official persons from foreign embassies to join us. They were terrible hunters - very wild and not careful - which led to most of us at some point get shot or injured. I hated this place also because we often lost one or more of our dogs there because the guests were so incautious. They hunted on the Dick Cheney principal of shoot first and ask later. Dressed up in the latest “hunting fashions” of the day with tons of bullets draping over their bodies - they looked more like guerrilla soldiers than sportsmen.

The days always started always with the host offering his guests a drink and for us - cold lemonade was served. Sir Jocelyn kept his control over the dogs by his hunting horn and whip. The rest of us had a whip that we used with great enthusiasm against dogs that did not behave. They always knew what that meant. I still have a pretty whip that I got for Christmas one year from Sir Jocelyn. The dogs were used for driving and they worked with a lot if energy in the brush and wood. They drove the rabbits and pheasants in hundreds from their nests to the hunters who were waiting with their guns. It was a unique approach that Sir Jocelyn perfected. The IImer pack of Sealyhams was the only pack of Sealyhams in the world to be used in this way and Sir Jocelyn became quite famous for it.

We, the staff, had to stay close to the dogs because if not there in time, the small animals would be eaten by the dogs. That meant that we had to crawl in the brushes, often thorn bushes, to try to save a rabbit from two Sealyhams, one on either end of the rabbit, convinced that they deserved it more.

When a rabbit or a pheasants had been shot the host’s Retrievers were there to retrieve them as soon as possible – if not, the Sealyhams devoured them.

After about three hours of hunting it was time for lunch. The host had always a big picnic basket full of food and drinks for the guests. I can only remember one place where no food was offered. We always had cold sandwiches that we had brought with us and ate while the dogs sat around us and looked on hungrily. 

It was just a short break, and then back to hunting until dark. Then came the hard work to try and get all the Sealyhams together again and put the in the car so that we could go home. Usually one or two were always missing and sometimes it got to midnight before we found them all. They usually had gotten into a badgers hole and they would not let us know where they were until they wanted too. One maybe had found a dead rabbit and was having a feast behind a bush. Another might have gone bird hunting – I did not like that on bit!. One of the ‘bird hunters’ was Mr Jones. He once killed 40 hens that I had bred. He just opened the kennel gate and dug under the fence and got unto the henhouse.

When we had collected all the dogs and put them in the car we sat down in the car and waited for Sir Jocelyn. He always was invited inside the warm house for drinks which could take between 10 minutes to 1 hour. Meanwhile, we were sitting in the cold car among wet, snoring, dirty Sealyhams. Sometimes a maid brought us a glass of cold lemonade while we were waiting. A cup of hot tea or some hot soup would have been so much more welcomed - but we were never offered that. Once we got some whiskey - but only once.

It was always past 8pm in the evening before we got back to the kennel and then we had to go through the dogs to look for wounds and thorns. We always looked in their ears, eyes, coats and feet. If there were any serious wounds we had to take the dog to the vet immediately and he was 8 kilometers  (4.9 miles) away. We had an agreement with him that he would always help us after the hunts and he did. After the dogs were fed and said good night to, we could then have something to eat ourselves. We were never in bed before midnight.

Sometimes we were asked if we wanted to be part of a classical Fox Hunt which meant a lot of walking– about 25 – 35 kilometers (15 to 21 miles) in one day. The foxes were cunning and fast back then and there were lots of them living in the woods. The hunters never managed to kill enough of them to protect the birds and the hens that lived in the hen houses. The foxes caused a lot of damage and economical loss for the farmers and fox hunting was organized on a regular basis. Only the best hunters were invited to these hunts. Even if the dogs got them out of their hole, I can never remember that we shot more than three foxes in one day. On a hunt like this, Sir Jocelyn always had his rifle with him and if any fox was shot that day, he had at least gotten one of them because he was fast, skilled and nothing managed to escape him.

Today the Waterford kennel is gone. The land has been developed and when I drive through Waterford towards St. Albans I can hardly recognize anything. The suburbs look as different from our kennel houses as the neat gardens from the fields where I used to go hunting. A time and age has passed forever. And it is never coming back.

Note: This article was borrowed with minor edits from the Sealyham Century site copyrighted by Anna Gersner and used with her generous permission. 

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