Island Life Magazine Ltd August/September 2010 | Page 58

interview

Island Life - August/September 2010
Far left: Paris 1990
Harold pictured
with Adrian
Sothcott and Ron
Holland.
Left: Winner of the
1993 Ashey Scurry
on Duffy.
Below far left:
Harold comes
first in the Point
to Point at
Tweseldown 1981.
Below: Harolds
Mum & Dad
pictured with Mrs
Sheath (seated)
in 1942 at Little
Duxmore Farm,
Rowlands Lane

for Ireland to visit a few farms, but as

there to go to the last race meeting at

same trail hunting as doing it properly,

Harold recalls: “We got on the coach

Tralee racecourse before it was due to

and it is not helping the countryside,

to visit the farms, but didn’t miss a pub

close,” he said. “We hadn’t read any

because there are foxes everywhere.”

on the way. There were 17 of us, and at

newspapers because we had a 120-mile

every stop the landlord had to pull 17

drive, but when we got about two

hunting, saying: “When I was 10 I

pints of Murphy’s Ale.”

miles from the course we thought it

would go on my pushbike to Ryde to

was a bit deserted, and were then told

Archie Warren’s Riding School, which

standing by a set of temporary traffic

the meeting had been cancelled. So

is now a housing site. A lady who still

lights which read ‘wait for green’. It

all I got from that trip was a couple of

lives in the village taught me to ride,

was picked up by one of the group,

photographs of an empty racecourse.”

and I had a pony called Pastime, which

One souvenir from that trip was a sign

smuggled on to the plane home under

When he and wife Andrea are not

Harold recalls his early days of

cost £20.

a coat, and Harold still has it to this day

working on the farm, Harold likes

in one of his sheds.

nothing more than to go out hunting,

and they were at the kennels at

Harold, who also recalls riding

“The huntsman was Harry Kennett,

even though that sport has changed

Gatcombe where the hunt is now. I

side-saddle around Brickfields and

almost as dramatically over the years as

have hunted for 56 years, so I know a

winning ‘best turned-out’, had another

farming has.

fair bit of the Isle of Wight countryside.

trip to Ireland more recently with race
horse breeder Michael Pope.

He said: “I have hunted since I was

“When I was 11 I had a pony called

10 years old, and was joint master of

Sun Flash. One Christmas Day I rode

the Isle of Wight Hunt for four years

it from the farm to Shorwell, and left

Ireland, and after arriving in Dublin we

from 1989 to 1993. I was sorry to see

him in Douglas Biles’ stable overnight.

drove down the only motorway over

hunting change as it did. It is not the

The hunt met at Carisbrooke Castle on

“He asked me to go to his stud in

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