I AM writing in reply to the letter published by the Gazette on January 6 entitled Hunt symbol of inequality.

I am not going to go into the pros and cons of hunting as its been done before, but I strongly disagree that it is an elitist sport for rich farmers.

I grew up in a single-parent family after my dad was killed in Northern Ireland when I was five. My mother grew up loving horses and passed it on to us children. Despite having very little money, a widow's pension, no land and living in a small town, she managed to afford to keep a pony for me. There was no full livery for us. I had to cycle two miles before and after school each and everyday to deal with my pony, and I had to break and school it myself because we wouldn't afford a 'ready-made' pony.

I spent many a happy day hunting with the East Devon Hunt for a couple of pounds a day. We did not have a trailer and some days I hacked six miles to get to the hunt meet with just a Mars bar in my pocket. My mum put all she could into my hobby and we were lucky to find grazing and stabling at a reasonable price.

My tack and riding clothes were often secondhand (apart from my hat), but I looked after them well and still have my show jacket which my mum bought when I was 14 (28 years ago) and it still fits!

For a lot of the time we had no car, so no lifts to the stables, no moral support at shows or hunt meets. One weekend I hacked from Exmouth to Tipton St John for a horse show on Saturday, then on to Aylesbeare for a show on Sunday. The pony stayed at a farm in Tipton on Saturday night, and a friend picked me up to take me home for the night on Saturday and dropped me back on Sunday. We came home with 14 rosettes that weekend and my pony was still raring to go the next day.

I persuaded a few other kids from our stables, from similar backgrounds, to go hunting too and the buzz they got was written all over their faces, despite their initial hesitancy. They all went again.

There were sacrifices, though, and I can remember going to school with secondhand clothes. I also remember scraping the ice off the inside of my bedroom window as we had no central heating. We did not eat a lot of meat as we could not afford it. We were never hungry, but our diet was made up of lots of veg and rice, pasta, etc. We never went on holiday apart from one caravan holiday in Wales. It sounds like some idyllic time in the '50s but it was in fact, only in the '80s.

I would love to hunt again, despite living in a council house and having a low income. But, unfortunately, after a 20- year break and five children I have slightly lost my nerve and my fitness levels.

The moral of the story is that nothing is out of reach for anyone if you are willing to forego that new sofa every year from DFS, settle for secondhand stuff, and put everything into what you really want.

As for parades and horns, etc, what is wrong with a bit of tradition? We have lost too much of it to the nanny state and the politically correct brigade. Would you want to see the Queen in a shell suit at the state opening of Parliament?

WENDY LEAHY Hillcrest, Stoodleigh