8. 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. Read our fun question and answer session with this impressive killing machine.

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 Fender. I was in the Territorial Army. It was fine to start but the uniform was drab and I didn’t kill anyone. So after half an hour I left. It was General Fender who suggested that if I liked killing and colourful uniforms the new sport of Man-Hunting was for me.

GREATEST MOMENT: For any hunter it has to be that first kill. A baker from Rugby. We made sure, unlike his loaves 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 a high-pitched cry that the other choristers had to admit 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 which is when we struck. Ironic though 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 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.