Another Story For You - Fly

[214_si 143]

I would like to tell you a story about my son John’s bitch. It all started when I was stopping outside of Hartlepool, when I mated my dog Lou with my cousin’s (Tommy Loveridge) fawn broken coated dog that I had seen him kill 7 hares single handed over the course of 3 weeks.

 

On the 13/8/76 the pups were born. My John picked Fly; my other son Bill picked a brindle bitch the same colour as the mother. As the pups were growing up Bill & John couldn’t wait to get home from school and take the pups and their mum across the road where we lived to the Abbey Ruins and let them run up and down the hills and jump some fences for a good hour every night regardless of the weather.

 

Then March came and we pulled on at the Darrington trailer site. I started to take the pups and Lou coursing. Lou gave the pups about 12 kills in March. The 1^st weekend in April me and my two boys took them along Scunthorpe Rd A18 to some open land where I raced Mike & Orrie Gaskin 2 years earlier. We found a hare after 5 minutes of walking and put Lou and the 2 pups onto it and killed it quickly. Then we put the two pups on a hare, killed that one as well. They then went onto kill another after that; we could see they were coming along well, even though they weren’t even 8 month old.

They kept killing hares doubled up all through the summer, then in late September we moved to Cranleigh, onto Mark and Sues Place, near Guildford. We went coursing with my uncle John and Big Jimmy Giles near Winchester. My uncle John and Big Jims two dogs was having a run but making hard work of it, the hare was about 200 yards from us, and I slipped Fly and she ran past the two older dogs and picked it straight up.

I matched her with Billy Brazil’s bitch, we met each other at Amesbury outside of Salisbury, and the match was for £50. Fly ran three and stopped them all. Bills bitch stopped 2 out of 3. We had a return match and Bills bitch stopped 3 and Fly only stopped 2. Both matches were close; Fly was killing on average 2 or 3 hares single handed every time we took her out. At one time we went to Stow Tops Windrush with Eddie Scarret and Jim Stokes. Fly stopped 5 hares each time we went for 3 weeks killing 15 hares in 15 days. After that I tried matching Fly, but couldn’t get her matched, word went out that she could possibly be as good as her mum Lou, if not better, then one night I was watching TV and when the phone rings, it was David West and he asked if I had anything worth having a bet with, I said I have got a bitch, from my bitch Lou that could kill her hare, I said “I’ll run you for £100, same as your brother Billy”, He said “ I’ve just bought a bitch which I’ve gave a lot of money for, and I don’t want to lose its reputation”. He wanted to run for £500, so I put up £200, my boys put up £100 each and Albert Lee and Gerald Arnold put up £50 each.

 

We went to his place at Botisdale, near Diss. Me, my father, my brother Frank and his father in law Johnny Drain came and had a few side bets on fly. David’s 1^st hare got caught after about 2 bends, then Fly’s 1^st up popped up about 20ft away, she ran straight to it and picked it up without bending it. David’s 2^nd hare was killed pretty quickly. Fly’s 2^nd hare, and Fly ran straight to it and smashed into it, but didn’t pick it up, the hare was wobbling and not running properly, but going about 100 yards away, I was running to the side of Fly shouting “pick it up!” she was playing with it knowing she had it under control, she ended up killing it. David’s 3^rd hare was a very good run but she missed it. Now I knew I couldn’t lose only draw, for nearly an hour we searched the fields, couldn’t find another hare and It was pouring with rain, the rain was dripping from my clothes, then all of a sudden David put his hand up indicating he could see a hare in seat, I walked over to him about 200 yards away and went up behind hare and started making noise for the hare to get up and run, Fly spotted the hare in seat and fixed a stare at it, after about 10 seconds the hare got up and I slipped straight away, the hare didn’t go no further than about 4ft, David came over and gave me £500 and said “good luck”. I didn’t think it was fair and offered to run again, he said “no that’s good enough for me”

 

then another time me Buster and brother in law Johnny Barnard went coursing to Newmarket, place called Crishall Grange, we’d had a couple of runs then we pulled up near a giant haystack. Buster didn’t want to walk anymore, so me and John carried on walking when a farmer drove up to us, he had a shotgun poking out of his window, he came up close to me while I was walking and shot Fly while she was on the lead, he then drove over to my van, got out and shot one of my tyres. We went to the nearest police station and told them what had happened, they took him to court at Safron Walden, they ended up fining him a took his gun licence, and me and the others ended up with a £15 fine each. My John made a note of the amount of hares Fly had killed and it was over 200 hares in just over 2 years of running, Fly got shot in September 1979.

 

Was Fly as good as her mum, she could well of been. She and her mum Lou are the two bitches that will never be forgotten by me and my boy John.

My eldest boy Bill is another good coursing man, he had a big brindle dog called Jerry, who killed a lot of hares all over the country, even made a few tapes of killing hares, so who ever has watched the tapes can judge Jerry.

 

Us three are proper coursing men, it’s in our blood and we was born to do it, unfortunately now it’s been banned we don’t go anymore

 

Ito do it, unfortunately now it’s been banned we don’t go anymore

[BIG E 752]

Very good read mate pity about fly bet you felt like killing that c**t of a farmer

[satan and todd 125]

excellent again

[J.DOG 1,355]

Great read that mate shame the dog was killed that way , and at 2 yrs the dog sounded exceptional shame it diddnt live longer and could have got even better , c*nt of a farmer i'd have had to pay him a visit , good read

[paulf 820]

enjoyed that mate thanks for sharing ,sounds like she was a good one too..

[killing crew 2,708]

great read really enjoyed that. thanks for shareing it

[goldfinch2007 2,332]

good read brother i bet that took some time to write.what a memorey you got

[IN SLIPS 134]

Good read mate. Seen both tapes of jerry and he did look a good animal, how was he bred?

[lamping-lad 160]

good read

[pip1968 2,490]

good read that mate sounds like a very handy dog

[brazer 287]

Very good read that good memories for days gone by but unfortunate for fly.

[Mixed Bag 603]

cracking read really enjoyed the billy bruce and jerry film too very well filmed some good runs

[BIGLURKS 874]

Good read that mate shame about the dog though

[Tyla 3,179]

A great read, love to hear the stories of that era. I have a friend who did alot around the same time, i've spent many a night listening to his tales.

[black Edward 8]

why did you go to the filth.