Oops, I married a Gamekeeper.

At the age of sixteen I became a vegetarian. Yes, it coincided with my first year at art college, funny that. Art college is a great environment when it comes to being a bit left wing and developing opinions on subjects that may well have passed me by had I just gone down the job centre like everyone else. I was also very 'Body Shop' in that I didn't (and still don't) like the idea of testing vanity products on animals. Potential cancer cures, yes. Anti-clump mascara, no.

At seventeen and a half, a bacon sandwich broke my resolve and I returned to a carnivorous diet. I felt guilty until I had a chat with myself about nature. Now, anyone who's watched any David Attenborough programs will know just how cruel nature can be. During my time as a veggie, I was also passionately against any cruelty to animals (I still am), particularly hunting foxes on horseback. Foxes are such beautiful animals, and so like dogs, that to me, the idea of them being torn apart by hounds was simply abhorrent.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that I was a fully fledged 'anti'. I didn't go spreading funny pongs around the countryside or blowing horns to confuse the hounds, but if the local hunt came our way the odd expletive did leave my opinionated art student gob (much to my mother's horror)! To her, and my grandparents, the hunt was a beautiful tradition and a fine sight to see.

I was also against shooting. As far as I was concerned it was utter madness to go to such lengths as to employ people to look after birds merely for the purpose of scaring them into the air to shoot them a month later. In fact even when I type that now it seems a very slightly crazy idea.

All of this came into question when, oops, I married a Gamekeeper!

Now this did put me in something of a quandary. I wasn't sure how I'd deal with some of the issues that were key to his every day life, yet went against the things I believed in. Not only is he the linch pin of the local shoot community, his hobby (when I say hobby, I mean obsession) is deer stalking, another pass-time that I was absolutely against.

How to deal with this? One of my firm beliefs is that you cannot judge a man, until you have walked a mile in his shoes, or in this case, about six miles, across very muddy fields, in all weathers. How could I discuss and decide on these matters, without fully understanding the other side of the argument?

As far as shooting is concerned, I can see now that the birds that are 'put down' on the shoot, are looked after in terms of food, water and health. The amount of effort involved in keeping the birds safe from their natural predators most definitely gives them a quality of life that they wouldn't see in the 'wild'. I say 'wild' because pheasants aren't native to this country, and we probably wouldn't see any were it not for shooting in the first place.

I was also impressed that the shoot was a responsible one. Meaning that every effort to ensure every bird shot, is eaten, and has not died without reason. The Gamekeeper also goes to great lengths to ensure that all the birds are not shot in one shoot, and keeps statistics so that he knows how many of the birds put down, have been shot. This rarely rises above fifty percent, ensuring that there is a constant life cycle of 'wild' birds that survive and breed the next year. The shoot also puts huge emphasis on shooting well, i.e. ensuring a bird is killed outright and doesn't get injured and continue to live in pain. Far more effort goes into this than I think most people appreciate. The Keeper is very quick to reprimand anyone shooting outside of the sensible range in which you kill a bird instantly.

This is all part of an intricate balance though. Vermin, particluarly foxes, have to be kept down as they will kill for the pleasure of it. Now I love to see foxes, they are beautiful creatures, but too many of them, will upset the balance, and result in the loss of the lives of birds. I love to see rabbits, but too many rabbits, will destroy crops and shove the price of our food right up. I love to see deer, but too many of them will destroy woodland, and I love to see woodland. It's all about the 'too many'.

Fox hunting was tricky, I wasn't sure that I wanted to take part in that, but how could I argue for or against if I hadn't experienced both sides? The one thing I can say is this; one of the things that 'anti's say, is that the fox can suffer a long and painful death. I disagree. A pack of hounds will kill a fox quicker than any bullet. Hunting is now illegal of course but we can see from current news stories that it still goes on. I disagree wholeheartedly with sending in terriers when a fox has gone to ground. To me this is, and always has been both barbaric, and unsporting. If the fox has made it home, it has won the chase and that's that. I have also seen many foxes that are suffering with injuries having been hit by cars, or having got caught up in discarded litter etc, I think it's humane to end their suffering and they are much more likely to be caught than the healthy foxes. Survival of the fittest has always been nature's way. After experiencing hunting, I'm not ashamed to say that I can see the beauty, the tradition and the enjoyment of the hounds, the horses, and the people. Just as my parents and grandparents did.

Deer. Beautiful and majestic animals. They can strip a forest of bark in no time at all in too great a number. Marriage to a deer-stalker has opened my eyes to the life cycle of the herd, deer injured by traffic and caught in fencing etc. Again, it's not a case of wanting to shoot everything in sight merely for sport, but to manage and maintain a balance. When done properly and by an experienced gunman, it's not cruel, the animal dies immediately. The old are removed to give the young a chance.

To some degree, I think we have become a nation of sissies! So far removed from the food we eat, because we don't have to hunt it any more. I am proud to say that I have shot, and eaten a deer (not all in one sitting). If I hadn't eaten it that would be terrible, it would have died for nothing. Surely it's better that the deer has a free life, wandering as it pleases up until the moment it dies? Better than any cow that is farmed and may have to suffer a life in confinement? I dare say if we saw the conditions that most of our supermarket meat came from, we'd be appalled. I also find it interesting that because foxes or deer are pretty, or 'cute' they get a lot of press. Who worries about the amount of insects we all kill with our cars every summer? No, thought not, because they're a bit creepy and not cute.

 The next thing I'm going to say on this subject, I know will cause a bit of a fuss. There is one element of the hunting and shooting that I haven't mentioned. The excitement. I'm not too proud to admit that the thrill of the chase is exciting. The horses on the hunt, the stalker, the experienced shot, all experience excitement. This is not something we learn, it's something deep inside us. I haven't grown up with shooting and hunting, so I cannot have learned to feel that emotion, it's just there, within me. We have that instinct because nature intended us to survive, and to survive we had to kill. It really is that simple.

After a lot of deliberation, I can still say, hand on heart, that I'm against animal cruelty. Some of my acquaintances from the past struggled so much with this that they kicked up a little and declared they couldn't possibly visit me any more because they disagreed with what my husband does for a living. I think that says more about them than it does about me. I can also say that I'm proud to have a proper understanding of killing the food I eat. Food that has lived a free and natural life. But, killing it quickly and humanely. I'd much rather do that than stick my head in the sand and not think about the conditions in which my dinner lived and how it was slaughtered.

I can conclude, it's all about the balance. I can see the 'for' and I can see the 'against'. You may not agree with my opinion, but at least it is an informed one.