Foxes

Foxes

This may seem odd, but growing up in London foxes were a huge part of my life, yes I knew you would be surprised. I actually saw more foxes in London than I ever have in the country, especially life ones.

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My fascination with foxes started early on in my grandads antique shop, I loved that shop so much. It was like a fantasy adventure land.

My two favorite items in the shop were a stuffed fox, I think it may have had a dead rabbit under its feet as well, but I’m not sure now. It stood proud, its mouth open, to show its sharp teeth. I loved to stroke it, and pet it. I think my mental image of it maybe a little distorted, as I suspect it was probably worn and mouth eaten, like every other  stuffed animal I have seen in antique shops since.

The other item was a a fox fur stole, the mouths of the fix had clips in that meant you could fasten the stole around you. This as a child meant I could open the mouths and use the stole like a puppet, I would pretend it was talking, or feed it. The two heads chatting to each other.

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When we moved on to the hill, we quickly discovered that we had two foxes earths. One in the front garden, the dog or male fox. The in the back garden the vixens earth, this was amazing as she often had babies. I would watch the babies from the window, desperate to go out and hold them, of course I never did.

We discovered the earth one day when I was walking down the embankment at the back of the garden, I suddenly flew up in the air, as the ground shot out from  under me. I had in actual fact stepped on the vixen who had been hiding under the ivy that covered the ground.

What was really amazing was that we had pets, lots of pets, we had rabbits, guinea pigs, a tortoise and a cat  all of which lived in the garden, the rabbit not even in a hutch, yet they all survived unscathed. The reason I was to discover later was that foxes on the whole are fairly lazy, and town foxes have so much free food that's easy to scavenge, they don’t normally bother with prey. I mean why would they, when there are plenty of rubbish bins filled with old food.

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The local hospital, a geriatric hospital was an old nightingale type hospital. The residents would sit at the large french doors of the day room and watch the baby foxes play. One day some local yobs walked up through the hospital grounds and set their dogs on the fox cubs killing them in front of the old ladies. The hospital porters grabbed them and the police called.

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Foxes were something you often saw on the streets of London at night. In the countryside you rarely saw a fox, unless it was being persuaded by hounds, or occasionally being shot at by angry farmers.

As I have said I loved foxes, and as a townie, I despised the idea of fox hunting. Yet when I moved to the countryside I started to understand the reasons for Fox hunting. Whilst city foxes are very lazy, due to their circumstances. Country foxes are hunters, through necessity. I can fully understand the need for culling the fox population. I’m not saying that fox hunting is right, I am not sure that it is the best method of controlling population.

I was once told by an angry poultry farmer, that foxes are evil killers and will kill just to silence others from raising the alarm.

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Years later living in a seaside town, I was lucky enough to often see foxes when out and about at night. They stop and watch you before carrying on with their travels.

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