Far from being a hunter's charter, the Countryside March is for all those who love the country and who want to protect it

Phil Beaven (Letters, September 13) says of next week's Countryside March to London that it is 'purely in support of fox hunting and nothing more' and that there are 'some misguided souls without the power of independent thought who are going along for a day out'.

This march is not about fox hunting. It is to demand that our Government governs for all people and recognises minority rights, and to highlight that country people are distressed, dissatisfied and disregarded.

Why else would gamekeepers, farmers, anglers, shopkeepers and entire country communities assemble at great expense and inconvenience to make their feelings felt.

There will be hundreds of thousands of people on the march and many of them (myself included) do not support fox hunting but we do recognise the 'thin end of the wedge'.

We are fighting for the preservation of the countryside as we know it the farmers, anglers, shooting fraternity etc are the people who work and conserve the countryside.

Yes, the countryside is very nice for a day out from town with the kids for a picnic, but who mended that fence over there, who worked 12 or 14 hours at night to see his lambs safely born, who shod those horses at the local pony club, who rethatched that roof? Country people Mr Beaven, the people who live in it, protect it, preserve it and love it.

Hundreds of thousands of us will march on London. We will not be violent, we will not wear balaclava masks, we will not carry pickaxe handles and we will not attack any person who disagrees with our point of view unlike a recent incident when anti-field sports supporters attacked an elderly couple in Lincolnshire who had stopped their car to watch the hounds.

No, Mr Beaven, the large majority of country folk do not enjoy animal abuse. We understand nature. We understand that when your hen house with your much loved hens who have been producing eggs by the dozen is suddenly destroyed by a mange-ridden fox, he hasn't just killed one for a meal, he has killed all of them in a killing frenzy.

What would you do?

If you had a nest of robins in your garden and they were destroyed by magpies who are increasing while songbirds decrease, what would you do?

I suggest you would do nothing. But we in the countryside are doing something. We are marching, not to support fox hunting, but to protect the countryside.

J CURTIS

Kingsley Avenue

Wootton Bassett

Swindon