LOWDOWN Summer 2015 page 39
Winnie’s
Wheelbarrow
➃ Fighter ace
In ‘From The Chair’, Brian’s wartime (WWII, not Boar War) reminisces about as a very, very, young lad walking his Springer Spaniel Kim on the Downs. No doubt spotting RAF fighter planes soaring through the skies, or in dog fights - no pun intended - jogged a memory.
I remembered us attending an early BHC Branch Fun Day, probably in the eighties (1980's not 1880's WM), and entering our hound at the time, Sigmund, in the Fancy Dress competition.
Frankie designed and made a costume that she called Fighter Ace - and won with it. This small achievement was featured in the canine newspaper, Dog World (see news clipping below).
It’s offally good!
Winnie’s Wheelbarrow is
for all the ‘odds & sods’ -
orphaned snippets which do not
have a home elsewhere in
Lowdown.
It takes its title from Winifred
Burgess, who with her husband,
Norman, owned a kennel of
Basset Hounds in Ringmer, Near
Lewes, East Sussex, back in the
sixties.
Winnie was a well-known
sight in the village, regularly
spotted with her wheelbarrow
collecting offal for the hounds
from the nearby abattoir.
During the closed season,
hunt supporters would exercise
the hounds on Ashdown Forest
at venues that the BHOC
continues to use today.
