6. DOG ENDS

6. Hunter of the Month: Simon De Grett

With an impressive tally of 11 kills in June Simon De Grett takes the honours as Hunter of the Month. Here is your opportunity to get to know this callously efficient individual with our fun question and answer session.

NAME: Simon De Grett

AGE: 34

BIRTHPLACE: Tunbridge Wells

LEADER OF: The Borchester Hunt

SCHOOL: Winchester

MARRIED: To Rachel

CHILDREN: 2

HORSE: Camphor 18 hands a Clydesdale

BIGGEST INFLUENCE ON CAREER: General D D Fender. I was in the Territorial Army. It was fine to commence but I found the uniform drab and the fact I didn’t kill anyone rather dispiriting. So after thirty minutes I left. It was General Fender who suggested as I departed that if I liked the kill and colourful uniforms that I take up the new sport of Man-Hunting. Greatest advice I’ve ever had. Took to it like a duck to water using my family connections.

GREATEST MOMENT: For any hunter it has to be that first kill. How I wish I had Alzhiemers so that every kill felt like my first. A baker from Rugby. We made sure, unlike his loaves that day that he would no longer be rising. Kept the blood-splattered rolling pin he pathetically tried to fight the dogs off with as a memento.

FUNNIEST MOMENT: We despatched one of our prey while he was at choir practice. As the first of our hounds locked it’s jaws on his crown jewels he let out such a high-pitched cry that the other choristers had to admit that it was the most impressive falsetto they’d ever heard from him.

MOST DIFFICULT OPPONENT: Chuck “Michelin Man” Lawrence of Wolverhampton. Covered himself in thick rubber to fend off the bites and enable him to evade the designs of our hounds. Got rather complacent though after a few weeks of this and celebrated with a night in a hotel with a sex worker in Edgbaston. Obviously needed to divest himself of the tyres for the hanky panky to occur which is when we struck. Ironic though that due to the health concerns of the sex worker that Chuck Lawrence was wearing “a rubber” when he met his maker. Odd to think that had he been given the opportunity to put his costume back on he would’ve been retyred at the age of just twenty eight.

FAVOURITE COLOUR: Red

FAVOURITE SONG: Keep On Running by The Spencer Davis Group. Lasts about two minutes and forty seconds which is longer than any of our prey can keep on running once the hounds have them in their sights.

FAVOURITE MOVIE: Jaws.

FAVOURITE BOOK: Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. Haven’t read it yet but will dip into it and pick up a few tips if we are given an employee from a car showroom to hunt.

IF YOU WEREN’T A HUNTER WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU WOULD BE? Anything, I’m not particularly fussed as long as it’s not being the hunted.

PERSONAL AMBITION: To make the record books for being responsible for the most amount of kills in man-hunting. To be knighted by the King for my services to the nation. To have a statue unveiled of me in my lifetime on horseback in my hunting gear. But hunters tend not to get recognised in this manner by society. Their magnificent efforts are taken for granted. In fact, the only statue I have ever seen of anyone blowing a horn is that of Louis bloody Armstrong.

IF YOU COULD CHANGE ONE THING ABOUT MANHUNTING WHAT WOULD IT BE? I would like it if hunt leaders like myself could also select our prey rather than being totally reliant on the outcome of a random draw. As I often come across people I would like to see on the end of my carnivorous hounds. My biggest bugbear is when I request an Americano in a coffee shop. I am frequently asked if I want milk with it!!!???? NO! It’s an Americano!!!???

FELLOW HUNTER MOST ADMIRED? Jack Bleacher of the Hereford Hunt. Never says a word while the hunt is on until the prey is in range then through a megaphone shouts the word ‘Kill’ followed by about forty plus synonyms for that word until the deed is completed. The synonym that he was shouting upon the prey’s demise is the one he then records in his diary and any official correspondence regarding the death. That’s classy, or stylish if you prefer, chic, smart, sophisticated….