Are we losing our tradition?
By Karen Davison-White.
DEFINE tradition. A belief, principle, or way of acting that people in a particular society
or group have continued to follow for a long time.
That is hunting! Times are changing, and while I sit back in my office and reflect, trawling through the archives of photographs, it made me think of this gradual change which is happening today on the hunting field regarding the relaxing of the dress code.
It is a subtle change; but nevertheless traditions are changing. In my humble opinion, I like tradition. There is nothing nicer than good turnout (within one’s means of course) when it comes to dress on the hunting field, but not everyone can afford a made-to-measure Hunt coat or a pair of made-to-measure boots, let alone Henry Maxwell hand-made boots which start at £10,000! Of course there are good boot makers to accommodate various pockets, and the Davies family in Wales were second-to-none
but now are no longer operating.
Beau Brummell (1778-1840) designed the modern hunting boot – his boots always had white tops and these used to be correct wear. He told an admiring enquirer that the wonderful polish on his boots came from using blacking mixed with peaches and champagne! Certainly, many people used the white of an egg to get lustre on their boots which made them look like patent leather.
