WHEN sportspeople meet in a remote spot on this cluttered isle it can sometimes feel as though there is an element of magic at work: shades of the film Field of Dreams, in which a farmer creates a baseball field in a corn-field and the ghosts of all the greats arrive to play. Kevin Costner portrays the farmer and delivers the famous line “If you build it, they will come” with maximum smoulder.
I can’t vouch for ghosts on James Pound’s last day hunting the Newcastle and District Beagles (NDB) but there is no doubt that he has built something in his 14 seasons as huntsman and, as a result, the people had come. In this case to a windswept grouse moor in north Northumberland: one of Pound’s favourite Meets – an undulating range of white grass and heather that provides the perfect conditions for the beagles to do their work. There’s just one lonely road snaking through it; the only evidence of human life is a single farmstead facing out to distant
