There are sporting men who take the field seriously, and then there is Jock Jorrocks. Created by the English writer Robert Smith Surtees in the nineteenth century, John Jorrocks was a London cockney, horseman, foxhunter, gunner, gourmand, and enthusiastic authority on nearly everything. He was also, depending on the occasion, somewhat less accomplished than he believed himself to be. That was precisely the point.
Jorrocks appeared in an age when sport was becoming part of a larger culture of leisure, travel, food, friendship, and storytelling in the 1830’s and 40’s. Surtees understood that the sporting life was never merely about the hunt, the hounds, the ride, or the quarry. It was about the entire day surrounding them: the early start, the horses, the dogs, the companions, the lunch, the weather, the mishaps, and the story that would inevitably become better by the time it was told again. Jorrocks loved all of it. And, we have to Surtees wonderful writing filled with humor that is as on point today as it was back then. Frankly, nothing else in fictional literature about foxhunting even comes close, except maybe Gordon Grand.
Surtees’s famous character also possessed the great sporting virtue of enthusiasm. He approached the countryside with the appetite of a man who intended to enjoy himself regardless of whether the day went according to plan. His character fits this image, when sketched as a man overly stuffed into his hunting attire, perhaps from decades of indulgences. His confidence routinely exceeded his competence, but his pleasure in the sporting life was genuine. He was never too dignified to be ridiculous and never too ridiculous to be thoroughly entertaining.
Perhaps that is why Jorrocks still feels familiar. The best sporting lives are not necessarily the most accomplished ones. They are the ones filled with mornings worth remembering, dogs worth following, horses worth riding, meals worth lingering over, and friends with whom a failed day in the field can become a legendary one. And hopefully, there is some occasional levity to the stories that lifestyle creates.
Jorrocks understood something that modern life occasionally forgets: the point of going on a sporting adventure is not about the destination, it is about what happens along the way. And for that, we have to love Jock Jorrocks, as he loves every bit of it or so he tries with some calamities thrown in for good measure.
