The wall which has been turned into a work of art on the farm on the M62 - Jill Thorp
We spend too much of our time in meetings; with our landlord, Natural England, The Woodland Trust or Highways England. Builders, joiners, plumbers and plasterers, all needing our input when really we just need to be farming.
The battle with Highways England over their motorway fence is ongoing and meetings are often hostile leaving us frustrated and angry. Work on the house continues and I wonder when it will ever end.
Our latest meeting was yet another one about trees. Again, a lengthy and often worrying debate that has been dragging on for years.
We are, however, reaching some sort of agreement that will see parts of our beloved moorland disappear under a sea of plastic guards.
This has been a lengthy, drawn out and often contentious subject for us, initially one that looked like it would pretty much wipe us out.
Following endless discussions and meetings as well as wildlife surveys I think we have it scaled down to what can only be described as “an agreeable area”.
We’re not against trees and of course see the value in them from both from an environmental and ecological stance.
I am, however, a lover of open moorland and have spent many years improving, nurturing and studying our magnificent uplands and the myriad of unique creatures that live there.
Being sold this idea that trees will save these “barren wastelands” is misleading but unfortunately has been swallowed by many as the volume of land disappearing under great swathes of plastic guards is testament to.
A couple of weeks ago, in the middle of a cold snap, with snow being brought on a particularly bitter wind, I whipped my phone out and with frozen fingers managed to capture a shot of our good friend, Martin.
A huge weathered hand grasping a steaming cup of Yorkshire’s finest tea, his smiling face just visible beneath the heavy layers of work clothes, a testament to his resilience.
Behind him was a broken down wall, in the process of being rebuilt, a spot of gapping as he calls it.
I later captioned the photograph “Britain’s most dedicated waller”. It was a brutal day to be out on the hill walling, a “two coats colder” kind of day.
But he was there, working away, cheery as ever. A few days later I drove past another of Martin’s walls.
A new wall marking the entrance to a new and very grand home. The wall, in all it’s glory can only be described as a magnificent work of art.
But as I drove down the track admiring it I noticed it had additions, small, but significant ones. Circular pieces of stone were tucked in amongst the regular stones, each one bearing a marking.
The creators initials on one, a fox at full stretch etched into another, a badger peeping out from the centre of the next.
He had painstakingly carved into the stone and only those that take their time to admire the wall will notice them.
This traditional masterpiece will outlive most of us and hopefully it will stop many a walker as they head down the track to the fields and they too will smile and marvel at such a thing of beauty, built by a man who is sadly a dying breed in this world.