Letter: What rural fury?

Sir: Duff Hart-Davis (Country Matters, 7 August) states : "The Labour Party's threat to ban fox-hunting has aroused deep anger among country people - not just those who hunt, but the whole rural community."

This letter is intended to reassure all non-country dwellers that they can still venture safely into rural areas without fear of running into any mobs of hostile rustics furious at being denied their right to torture wild animals.

My village (population 500) seems to be pottering along in its usual way. The atmosphere in the village pub remains one of calm, even phlegmatic, good humour, and the chat in the post office has not veered off its usual course of the weather, the kids, the events of village life. I have not yet run in to a single person who is grinding their rustic teeth or showing a flash of anger in their honest country faces. I have checked with my friends in other local villages and they too report a conspicuous lack of "deep anger" in their communities.

The chat at the Hunt Ball , however, may be very heated, but only a tiny number of people have anything to do with that type of thing.

PENNY LITTLE

Great Haseley, Oxfordshire