Reynard

As a child I came across the fox as most do. The pages of Aesops Fables, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Goethes’s Reineke Fuchs, and Reynard the Fox, telling of the trickster, the joker, the cunning and experienced rake, the charming rogue.

As I grew older the hunt would ride through our land. A baying of dogs, a claxon of horns, and then the riders were through the gates pell mell before disappearing into bracken and hedge row. For a child the spectacle of privilege was magnificent, vaguely terrifying, and a bit saddening. One Spring I found a vixen and her kits tucked into their den in the old sand pit through the woods. The hunt never trod our land again as my mother defiantly stood her ground and forbade entry (I dont think we were all that popular in the village for some time after).

 Over the years I’ve come to see the fox as a kindred spirit whose traits have served me well over many a landscape. Time spent at height on the great peaks of the world has taught me that moving fast and light is a necessity, existing on the muscle memory and quick decisions that experience brings. Timing is everything and one must bide one’s time, waiting for the moment of opportunity, then acting with decisive haste and a sole intent. At Imperial Black we have taken this ideology and applied it to all that we do. Being a small and quite specialized group is an incredible luxury. The ability to change direction at a moments notice governed by our intuition and experience is a refreshing way to go about things. This is not lost on our Imperial Black lads who seem to view things in a similar manner.

It is our shared experiences that brought us together and it is the promise of the new and intriguing that keeps us together still. We are individuals operating just a little bit left of centre or far out on the periphery of things. After all, isn’t that where all the fun is?