My father died when I was five months old. Killed, like his father before him, in a world war.

Three years ago, a family heirloom was handed down to me which, until then, I never knew existed. It is a small diary, kept by my father, in his 16th year. This modest volume, as anyone who has lost a father when young will understand, is one of my most treasured possessions.

I have always felt passionately about the hunting issue, but the discovery of the diary helped me to understand why it is so important to me. The entry for January 1, 1931, for example, is particularly poignant. It begins:

“The New Year’s Eve Dance finished at 3am and Ken and I went into their house for some coffee. Verna and I went to the hunt at Romaldkirk. Lovely day. Hounds put on railway line, set up a hare and ran it west.”

My father was a man of high principle, just like his father before him. My grandfather was a coal miner in the drift mines of Co Durham, and later became Labour agent for Bradford. My father was a committed Christian, but also a dedicated communist. You could not fail to be a communist in Bradford during the 1930s — when some children had neither shoes nor clogs, but rags about their feet.

My father and my grandfather shared a love of the British landscape and of the countryside and its traditions.

They gave their lives protecting those traditions; my grandfather in the trenches of the first world war and my father at Anzio, fighting the tyranny of Nazi Germany. I find it ironic that Hitler banned foxhunting in 1939.

I am filled with the sense that I am heir to their passion, and hope I have inherited what I admire about them as men.

I may be better known as the former frontman of Pink Floyd, but I have always felt as passionate about the countryside as I have about music.

Whenever I have worked abroad, whether touring during my time with Pink Floyd or in the years since, the British countryside and its landscape have been a recurring source of inspiration and strength.

That is why I am appearing in concert on Wednesday at the Albert Hall in support of the Countryside Alliance. After the Berlin Wall came down, I stood in front of 350,000 people in the Potsdamer Platz and performed The Wall. In many ways, the Whip Craic fundraising concert this week is just as symbolic.

That is why I have also chosen this occasion to perform for the first time in public the overture from my forthcoming opera about the French revolution, Ca Ira. This is a project that has engaged me for more than a decade, and I have put as much of my soul into it as I did for my Pink Floyd work.

For anyone who doesn’t know, the Countryside Alliance encourages the conservation of wildlife and defends the traditions of country life. One such tradition is hunting with dogs.

In my own childhood, I would attend the Christmas meet of the local hunt. I remember watching its progress across farmland and thinking what a spectacular sight it was.

I was especially struck by the other hunt followers on their bicycles or in their Ford Populars with their Thermos flasks, ruddy complexions and infectious enthusiasm.

When I was young, I was also forever rescuing wounded animals and nursing them back to health and freedom. I was determined that when I grew up I was going to become a vet.

Although things turned out very differently, I mention this only to illustrate that the pro-hunting fraternity is informed by a love of animals, not the reverse. My view is that hunting with dogs is not only morally correct, but also a natural expression of man’s nature as an omnivore.

I know there are other musicians who would disagree with me. But I am not the only contemporary musician to support the Countryside Alliance. Jon Lord from Deep Purple, for one, will also be appearing on stage this Wednesday.

It may be that we are part of a minority. If that is the case, I would expect parliament to protect our rights, as it should any minority.

It would be a grave mistake for the government to impose legislation on the rural community, which would create a bitter divide between town and country in a nation already battling with a sense of loss — loss of empire, loss of self-respect and loss of national identity.

There is some deep part of the Englishness in me that compels me to stand and be counted.