A Question of Ownership?

Like people, property doesn't have to be beautiful to be loved.

Once we rented a modest piece of land - five small fields and some tumble down stables. Grazing is always in short supply so we thought ourselves lucky to get it. There was also an element of anxiety as until that time our horses had been in do-it-yourself liveries so that there was always somebody on hand to give advice.

The place wasn't perfect. The soil was clay so that it failed to drain in winter and was rock hard in summer. The south-westerly prevailing wind blew into the stable yard but that didn't matter because it was ours.

Gradually we got to know it. A pattern emerged, chaffinches came in gangs during the cold weather then disappeared as soon as summer threatened. Pheasants braved the horses' hooves as soon as they realised that there was grain going spare. Over the years there must have been half a dozen regulars who grew increasingly tame and somehow hypnotised us into buying bird seed. To begin with we gave them names but after some months they would invariably stop coming, taken in the seasonal killing spree by nearby shooters. After that we didn't give them names - names spelt disaster. The last one, Boyo, was around for two years. Boyo wasn't his name, not really, just a way of identifying him from the more timid sort who occasionally drifted off course and then ran like hell across the field when they found themselves being watched.

Perhaps best was the spring when in late April the first swooping, hectoring swallows made an arial sortie around the yard to check that all was as they had left it. If we were lucky, two or even three broods would hatch before they made their epic departure.

The robin was our constant stable-mate. His nest appeared in unlikely places, hollowed out in a hay bale, tucked into the strands of electric fencing hung up in the tack room. He was ubiquitous, perched on the wheelbarrow, watching from the roof strut, issuing his staccato demands.

Of course, it was really all about the horses. Feeding, grooming, riding, simply watching. The months were punctuated by visits - from the farm tractor that called to take away the dung pile, the lorry that delivered straw and, of course, the farrier who came every six weeks and kept us up to date with the outside, equine world. Once a year we had our own small harvest when our hay was cut and bailed with some wonderfully antique equipment and our modest crop stored in the barn, a typical, age-long, summer task reflecting centuries of work by other ploughmen.

At one time there were five horses but gradually it dropped to two. Along with me they went into semi-retirement. Then, the inevitable happened and one day the eldest, thirty years old and adored, fell sick. Her parting was painful but dignified. I mourned her, her companion mourned her and because one pony and five fields didn't make sense, the owners asked to take the land back.

To be honest we had forgotten that the land wasn't ours. There might be a touch of melodrama here, but when asked to leave it felt a bit like the Highland Clearances, being driven from the land we loved - and love it we did.

So, we packed up years of detritus, swallowed back the tears and drove away for the last time. The degree of loss remains undiminished. Memories crowd in at unlikely times. I realise that I had planned to have my ashes scattered there but that would surely now hint at trespass. It would seem a bizarre thing, to ask if I could be cast into the air to be taken up by that south-westerly. I imagine sinking into the mud and those spring sparrows scraping me up to refurbish their nests. There I would sit, platered to the rafters, enfolding baby sparrows until they braved the world beyond.

So, other horses graze there, other people busy themselves and their voices echo across the land. Other ears hear that single mewling of a buzzard, the Dickensian, ghost-like moan of the curlew, the raucous cacophany of the flying officer goose, leading his squadron on their trek to who knows where. Meanwhile, I bid goodbye to the fields, ever aware that they never belonged to me, but I surely belonged to them.