BY JOHN MUSGRAVE

Many years ago my late mother used an horrendous phrase to describe a friend of her father’s: ‘Giles had a Good War,’ she said,  ‘and he found himself well placed after it.’  As a 10-year-old I noted her sniff of disapproval and asked her what she meant. The war had been easy for this fellow, she explained. Despite haring off to join the army in 1939, he had been drafted away from the front line into a munitions supply role in London. For Giles was a chess-playing mathematician and had been spotted by a former professor.  Even so, I learned, Giles turned out at night as an air raid warden. With sleeves rolled up he was involved in helping dig people out of the rubble as the Third Reich’s attempt at European unity rained down from the skies above. 

Age bestows wisdom but grudgingly the older I grow the more it becomes apparent that we are in a war. The enemy is harder to identify, but boiled down to basics, this is a war between good and evil. 

Like it or not we are called to fight. Maybe not with rifle and grenade, but fight nonetheless. We, the creaky Spartans and foot-stamping teenage Iroquois, we of the high country are called to defend all we hold dear: A country laced with meadows and woods, crags and cobbled streets, town squares loud with Christmas revellers, of colleges and towers, cafes, coffee shops, pubs, clubs and places where they sing. All these are under threat.   

Our farmers protest, revving the streets, challenging us all – call it Deere-pressure. Fox hunters are dragged before the courts. Protestors languish in gaol this Christmas, banged up for a social media post deemed offensive. The police track down journalists deemed to have committed a non-crime hate-crime. Everywhere binary double-speak catapults mendacity into the choked mainstream of public discourse. Even truth, according to the woke, is subjective – i.e. it is whatever you think it is. What is truth? they ask, unaware they are repeating the despairing question of  Pontius Pilate, 2000 years ago, when truth stood condemned before him. 

More obviously, we are called to fight for a country which gave the world medical breakthroughs that saved the lives of generations of children, a country which invented capital–powered commerce that lifted millions out of medieval levels of poverty and penury. Trial by jury, elected parliaments and the freedom to shout, ‘I disagree with you, sod off…’ all feature in the Christmas catalogue of Britain’s gifts to mankind. It’s a long list, a list which has been allowed to curl-up by a sort of patriotic indifference.

Second only to the country comes family. We fight for our family firms and farms, our children and their future. We fight for the places where we live and love, for she who stood by our side for more winters than it would be politic to relate.

If the front line are farmers, journalists and hunt staff, they should not be left alone to protest, write to MPs and face down the uniformed thought-police.

Farmers work seven days a week from well before dawn to the witching hours that quiet the natural world. They have enough to do and need all doughty defenders of the realm to join them. 

Never say, ‘I’m too old, I can do little,’ or ‘I’m too young, no one listens to me.’ We live in an age of unbridled communication thanks to the Internet. Be prepared to defend and fight for freedom in public. 

A day or two ago I was talking to a Catholic priest. We were discussing Italy’s fiery prime minister, Giorgia Meloni – she who said, I’m a woman, I’m a mother, I’m Italian, I’m Christian. ‘It is amazing the sort of things she can say which we just can’t say here,’ he said.

Why can’t we say them? Why shouldn’t we? 

Giorgia Meloni is one of a number of populists taking power across the world. Whatever you think of them, Donald Trump in the United States and Javier Milei in Argentina prove we can win this struggle. All three are part of a phenomenon of people saying, ‘You know what? I’ve had enough of you. Sling your flags and turbines, your panels and glue and get thee gone!’ 

Victory needs the engagement of ordinary folk. Get involved by thinking out loud. Pester the local press. For instance, if the local Hunt has been banned from meeting on your town square this Boxing Day, get in touch with the local newspaper or radio station. Never mind what people may think, tell ‘em how appalled you are. We have nothing to lose but our chains. Similarly, join as many protests as you can. Turn out to support local hunt meets, shoots and fishing tournaments. Be there. Re-read Siegfried Sassoon’s Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man, or AG Street and Surtees as well as Country Squire Magazine and other related media. It is by fomenting discussion and dissension that we will move forward. We have been silent too long. 

The British suffer from acute embarrassment about displaying emotion. I hesitate to urge readers to hug a farmer in the way Cameron wanted to hug a hoodie, but should you be so moved, ask discreetly and go right ahead. Similarly, do not defer to people with absurd opinions. It is comparatively easy to say, ‘Well I’m a fox-hunter, a church-goer, I’m self employed and I like to eat meat of an evening. So it’s no good coming out with all this extraordinary stuff as far as I’m concerned.’ Make the point that farming forms the backbone of Britain, a country that has long believed in freedom of speech, of thought and conscience. 

On this basis I defer from prevailing woke orthodoxy. I eat meat and fish. It’s good for health and a sure-fire way to build bone, muscle and sinew – all components  singularly lacking in the modern body politic. 

On the subject of politics, whether backing the Conservative Party or Reform UK or indeed any of the other parties, get involved. Tell them what you think. There are a great conversations to be had with reds and greens. Try saying: ‘I’d really love to vote for you but you need to change your attitude to farming and hunting.’ Good luck with that one. 

Above all celebrate Christmas. This will be a tough call for many this year. But it is imperative for all who care about Britain, her traditions and heritage to party with jovial fatalism. There is no better way to make the point than to celebrate Christmas, attending Carol Services, hunt meets, Christmas markets and wassailing parties. 

The fight does not always go the way of the strong nor the race to the fleet of foot, but time and chance happen to them all. A helpless baby mewling in a pub stable gives even the most wary, encouragement. That powerless child still fills every horizon 2,000 years later. Wise Men from the east noted this, we should too. This is a war worth fighting and a struggle that we can win.

Think forward to when we win. How sweet the taste of victory. Imagine the Huntsman’s horn sounding in triumph. Inheritance tax is abolished.  Net zero scrapped. The Hunting Act rescinded. The whole woke edifice of lies and distortions comes crashing down – and the sound of the turtle dove is heard once more in our land. 

How good to be able to say, ‘I was there, we stood together. I fought them.’  We may not win any medals but like Giles we will be able to say, yeah, I had a good war. 

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John Musgrave’s pro-hunting novel, ‘Corsica Girl’ was published last Thursday and is available on Amazon.