catherine.austen@futurenet.com
@cfausten123
TIM LANGLEY was a top-class professional huntsman who served the Berkeley for 30 years and was held in great esteem, both in his own country and throughout the land. I was privileged to have been able to watch him hunting the Berkeley hounds with such skill when I was an agricultural student.
Many years later, and some 40 years ago now, following his retirement, I went to see him and his wife Alison in their cottage at Berkeley to ask him about his career.
Remembering the pre-war days when he started, he said a huntsman only had to please his master and the whipper-in had to please his huntsman. He emphasised how the role of the post-war professional huntsman changed.
“These days you have to please a lot of people,” he told me. “A smile and a word for everyone. We are, after all, in the business of entertainment.”
Langley had no hunting background and was brought up in
