Lady Howe owned some of the most influential Labradors of all time: dual champions Banchory Bolo, Banchory Painter, Banchory Sunspeck and Bramshaw Bob; champions Ilderton Ben, Banchory Trueman, Banchory Danilo, Bolo’s Trust, Ingleston Ben, Orchardton Donald and field trial champion Balmuto Jock, to name but a few. Lady Howe purchased many of the dogs she made famous, her keen eye quickly spotting the potential of any young dog.
Her undoubted favourite was Bolo, though, a dog that did so much for the breed. Born in 1915, sired by Scandal of Glyn (a FT Chfn3 Peter of Faskally son), Bolo was an eighth generation from Lord Malmesbury’s Tramp (1878), through Munden Sixty and Sentry. His start in life was not a happy one and until Lady Howe took him on at the age of three, he showed no sign of the greatness that was within him.
Lady Howe worked tirelessly for the club, and by her example and encouragement the Labrador attained a position as the most popular retriever – which it still holds to this day. In the early days dogs were expected to be dual purpose and most of Lady Howe’s dogs achieved success both in the field and on the bench. Served well by her trainer/handler Tom Gaunt, Lady Howe ensured that her dogs performed their task successfully at the highest levels. It is very significant that four of the ten dual champions in the breed were owned by Lady Howe.
Together, Lady Howe and Lord Knutsford were great protectors of the breed. He frequently went into print to defend the Labrador. There were constant disputes as to the breed’s origins and Lord Knutsford was tireless in his endeavours to get to the true beginnings. There are notes of conversations with Major Radclyffe and Mr Stuart-Menzies, and letters to and from other early breeders. His kennel records describe dogs variously as being Newfoundland-type, Labrador-type, long-and rough-coated, smooth-coated, and frequently they had white markings.
Like so many other kennels, Munden had to endure a number of serious distemper outbreaks. Many promising puppies, and indeed some good adults, were lost. Lord Knutsford worked very hard to find a solution to the scourge. Having had little success in his approaches to the Ministry of Agriculture and the Royal Veterinary College, he finally persuaded the editor of The Field to set up an investigation into the disease. Funds were raised, the research was successful and a vaccine was eventually produced in 1929. The Daily Telegraph in that year reported that two vaccines were now available, albeit in very small supplies. The report went on: ‘dog owners have every reason to be grateful to Mr Holland-Hibbert for the idea and to the great sporting newspaper for the manner in which it has been made possible.’
Michael is a charming man, oozing passion for Labradors. He has personally supplied many dogs to Her Majesty, and the Queen has often lamented to him how much she wished she could spend more time with her beloved Labradors. Indeed, Michael told me the tale of one such of her dogs. The Queen had a particular soft spot for one Lab and decided to bring it to Windsor Castle so she could spend more time with it. She fed it and walked it herself, but the poor dog pined for its mates back at Sandringham and so she eventually sent it back for the sake of the dog. Even the Queen thinks of her dogs first.
It’s another anecdote of the powerful emotional command that Labradors have over us all.
Smudge nuzzled my knee in an effort to gain my attention. Labradors do this; they try to lift your hand in an effort to encourage you to stroke them. Smudge had a litter of eight puppies. Michael recounted how horrified his wife had been to discover that only four were black. Of the two yellows, she exclaimed, ‘what a shame’, and of the two chocolates she lamented, ‘how disappointing’. Colour is still an emotive subject amongst the purists. It seems that, despite the Queen’s approval, many still agree with the old fashion adage, ‘any colour as long as it’s black’.
‘Would you like to see the kennel?’ asked Kate, as she led me outside.
Nat Parker, the actor, sidled past me, as a director in a clichéd leather jacket and aviator sunglasses barked orders to the hundreds of foot soldiers. They were in the midst of filming Outcast.
Next to the house was an anonymous empty kennel.
‘There it is,’ smiled Henry.
‘It’s not much to look at,’ he explained. ‘We don’t use it any more.’
Like the Hurn Kennels, it was a forgotten, neglected part of the Labrador’s history.
Before I left, Michael told me a little about his great-grandfather.
‘The greatest anecdote about my great-grandfather, really, is from when he was speaking in his capacity as Chairman of the Labrador Retriever Club at the end of a field trial at Idsworth in 1935. He spoke, sat down with a drink in hand, collapsed and died. They carried him out in a box but everyone agreed it was the happiest way for him to go.’
Before leaving, I asked Henry about the provenance of their current Munden Labradors. He told me the story of a chance encounter.
‘When we got our Lab, who’s now 12 years old, my wife went to a breeder whose dogs she’d admired out walking. Knowing the family history, we explained that we were particularly keen to find a puppy that came from the Munden line. “That’s easy,” the breeder laughed. “Almost all Labradors are descended from the Munden line.” We thought we’d be unearthing something really special, but it turns out the Munden dogs are not dissimilar to Adam and Eve for humans!’
The breeder’s name was Sussie Wiles, someone I would later meet myself.
Across the Atlantic at the end of the nineteenth century, things were picking up for the Labrador, too, although it wasn’t until the late 1920s that the American Kennel Club recognised the Labrador Retriever as a separate breed. The first registration of Labradors by the AKC was in 1917, and in the early 1920s an influx of British dogs had begun to form the backbone of the breed in the United States. Distinguished Long Island families began to compete them in dog shows and retrieving trials, but they were an elite presence. A 1928 American Kennel Gazette article, entitled ‘Meet the Labrador Retriever’, ushered in a wider recognition of its traits as both game finders and water dogs. Up until those words were written in the United States, the American Kennel Club had only registered 23 Labradors in the country.
By the 1930s the ‘St John’s dog’ was rare in Newfoundland, and the 6th Duke of Buccleuch was only finally able to import a few more dogs between 1933 and 1934 to continue the line. The advent of the Second World War in 1939, with six tough years of food shortages and rationing, took its toll on breeding kennels. In many cases, dogs had to be fed on meat that was unfit for human consumption. Soon after the war, an epidemic of hardpad distemper killed significant numbers of dogs; a high proportion of the survivors were left with crippling chorea, a nasty disease of the nervous system also known as St Vitus’s Dance. Nevertheless, a core number of top-quality Labradors remained. Over the next four decades, the number increased by 300 per cent. After the war, there was a marked increase in the popularity of yellow Labs, and in 1960, the first chocolate champion was hailed.
The temperament of Labs and their abilities were perfect for all sorts of roles as working dogs; so much so that by 1952, the dog formerly prized solely as a sea dog, then wildfowling retriever, then gundog, became the popular all-round dog of today and the ultimate family pet.
‘The Labrador Retriever is without question the most popular retriever breed today, both for work and show,’ wrote P. R. A. Moxon in Gundogs: Training & Field Trials. ‘A comparatively “new” breed, Labradors have won the esteem of shooting men by their outstanding ability to be trained, find game and become companions and guards. The Labrador, as a breed, can be said to be both fast and stylish in action, unequalled in water and with “trainability” far above that of other breeds, and a devotion to master or mistress that makes them ideal companions. The smooth, short coat has many advantages readily appreciated by the housewife and the car owner. Dogs from working strains almost train themselves to the gun.’
As Wilson Stephens concluded in his definitive paper on the lost years of the Labrador, ‘Their versatility stems from a stolidity of temperament which makes them neither exciting nor excitable. It combines with an inherited eagerness