By Ed "Hazukashii" Howell
11 Nov 2021
Happy Birthday to all my fellow Marines out there . . . and Happy Veteran's Day to all veterans around the world, my brothers and Sisters in arms . . . may all those that perished in harms way rest in peace.
As the history goes, the original harrier clubs (a.k.a. Hare and Hounds or Paperchase clubs) spread from the United Kingdom to South East Asia via the expat community working abroad. There was an assortment of harrier clubs (e.g., Springett Harriers, Kinta Harriers, Kuala Lumpur Harriers, etc) in the 1920s and 1930s throughout the region. When Gispert (G) founded his Harrier club, he did not want to repeat the name Kuala Lumpur Harriers, so chose a more offbeat name of "Hash House" Harriers. In reality, the Hash House Harriers was just another harrier club at that point, but events would take place that would turn it into the worldwide phenomenon that it is today.
There has been a rumor around hashing for many years, that G and Torch, and the rest of the fellows there at the Selangor Club were British military officers, living in a military barracks . . . but that is not exactly correct. The real story is . . . see the attachment for the full story or also at https://www.gotothehash.net/history/ItS-Hashing&theMilitary.pdf