It was very moving to hear First On describe Low Profile’s death, and his insistence on being cremated.  She then, accompanied by Arfur Pint, completed the trail with the rest of us, or at least until Bonn Bugle offered a short cut to a chosen few.

  So yes, the hare did go round with the pack, or at any rate was seen sporadically.  Not enough to save us a great deal of doubt and confusion.  Her trail had been badly affected by rain, which continued to fall as we ran, nowadays very unusual on a Surrey hash.  Not indeed heavily: scuds and gusts of light rain whenever we were in the open, but enough to dampen our enthusiasm, and alas to obliterate the flour, which was only ever in small blobs as Bonn Bugle had laid it. (J. Arthur as checking chicken was more generous).  So we stumbled from perplexity to perplexity, and took 1.6 hours to cover 4.1 miles; by my reckoning that means we lost 20 or 25 minutes to havering around in uncertainty.

  We did not lack energetic runners.  Atalanta, Bigfoot, and Miss Bean (who had elected to run without any rain gear) were outstanding in their searches for flour, largely frustrated by there being no flour left after the rain had done its worst.  The very great majority of the trail was in dense woodland – doubtless next week’s trail, which is in very much the same location, will be laid by Stevie Blunder in more open terrain.  (He was today looking for a “reserve co-hare”, a curiously humble role in hash hierarchy).  At least the road to Newlands Corner is less constricted than today’s High End Path.  So when at last we did leave the woods and found ourselves on a golf course (the golfers had all had the sense to stay at the bar) we assumed we were nearly in.  After all, our car park was just next to their clubhouse.  But no, we still had a weary way to cover before we could reach our own beer, which can seldom have been more welcome.  It would be interesting to learn what Paddy and Spud – we only had two dogs with us today – thought of our erratic and uncertain behaviour.  They are accustomed to more confident, more rapid progress from their two-legged companions.

  Creative Writing courses tend to attract people eager to write about themselves. Not only does this sound understandable, some excellent playwrights and novelists have succeeded doing just that. I think in particular of Hanif Kureishi; on the other hand some writers ignore their own lives, while drawing on such aspects of society as they are familiar with. Two of Jane Austen’s brothers were admirals, but no such successful careers appear in her work; another, mentally deficient, was hidden away – and then ignored or forgotten by the whole family. Dickens did write one partly autobiographical novel, but otherwise drew on his imagination; the Bronte sisters transcended their own lives in their books, while drawing on their background. Lawrence did write about himself and his life, Conrad did not. So if you are that good, you may do what you like; I am tempted to suggest to lesser mortals – most other people! – to depend on their imaginations rather than their own feelings and experiences, which frankly do not merit appearing on a printed page. Since the University of East Anglia has nurtured some of our best novelists, creative writing of fiction can, exceptionally, be taught; poeta nascitur, non fit.

  On On, FRB