English Pastoral by James Rebanks (100 books to read .txt) 📕

see ancient oak woodland above us trying to regenerate. Little mountain ash trees are sprouting up all over the wilding fell, trying to beat the deer. The vegetation is growing denser and deeper, with alder and thorny scrub creeping up the ghylls. The floodplain is half-abandoned and half-wild. The valley has become much shaggier and wilder than it ever was in my childhood, with far fewer sheep dotted around. Some of my neighbours are confused or angry about that, while others are adapting, keeping more cattle or finding other ways to earn a living from their land.

I see farmers starting to work together to make this place even better, finding ways to farm around wilder rivers. Miles of hedges are being laid once more, drystone walls rebuilt, and old stone barns and field houses restored. I see river corridors fenced off and ponds dug; the blanket peat bog on our common land has been restored. Wild flower meadows liberated from artificial fertilizers and pesticides are now shimmering with clouds of insects, butterflies, moths and birds.

And I see other people in our community who aren’t farmers also planting trees and hedges, or creating wetlands, or helping to coordinate our efforts. These things bring separate worlds together, and the old ‘us’ and ‘them’ divide is fading. There is a love of this place that unites us all.

~

Sometimes I do not know what to make of all the changes, so I simply watch and learn from what emerges. I am not arrogant enough to think I have all the answers. These landscapes are being shaped by many people and many ideas, as they always have been.

Still, through all of this runs a thread of continuity with everything that has come before, as most of the hefted flocks of sheep still follow the same movements between fell and pasture they have always done. We still work together on our commons with sheepdogs and gather and show our animals at shepherd’s meets. These valleys are full of keen and smart young men and women that love its traditions and the work of the old fell farms. They are desperate to play a role in this way of life, and build their future in it, just as I was.

This valley may remain unloved by both die-hard production-focused farmers (‘It is cute, but just a lifestyle choice’) and extreme wilderness-loving ecologists (‘Please could you just disappear because we’d rather the uplands were forested’), but to me it represents a beautiful compromise, and it is improving all the time, as we learn new things and find fresh solutions to its challenges. I am proud of my community both for keeping the old ways going and trying to find new ways to address the desperate problems of our age.

I believe in this landscape and its people.

~

I drive the quad bike quietly along the grass lane by the small beck, through the marsh thistles. The tups are standing on the riverbank. They are all head, shoulders and horns. I count them and see that each is in good health. My eye always fixes on the largest and proudest of them, called ‘The Beast’. We bought him three years ago, and he has bred many fine sons and daughters. By his side is ‘The Jedi’ who we bought for a record price two years ago. These two woolly gentlemen are shaping our flock, hopefully improving it. They turn and gallop down the field.

As we turn, something ghostly white flashes beyond the dyke. I stop the engine.

Time slows. Water trickles over the pebbles between the darker pools, glistening in the last sunlight of the day. In the biggest darkest pool, clouds of minnows, little trout, swirl around erratically, their bodies scratching scribbles on the skin of the water. The air is alive with the gentle hum of flies.

Bea sits still in front of me. She is wearing a pink T-shirt and shorts, her stubby bare legs either side of the fuel tank. We wait. I have my arm around her middle and squeeze her tight to let her know I love her and am grateful for her help. She is a fiercely proud and independent girl. She has a broad open face, a band of freckles across her cheeks, and her hair in a ponytail. She is kind and fun: children flock to her when she enters a room. But with adults she is a rebel, cheeky. Ever since she was small, she has looked to her older sister Molly for reassurance and authority, not to her parents. They have always been their own little tribe, with their own allegiances. When I told her as a toddler to do things, she would look to her sister to see whether I should be obeyed. She will defy me, or her mother, if she thinks she is right. Like many of the women in my family, she has spirit, guts and a keen sense of right and wrong. These moments when she helps me on the farm are the nearest she lets me get to showing her affection. I know that secretly she wants me to be proud of her. And I am, of course, but I’m not sure she knows that yet.

The setting sun casts long shadows from the oak trees across the meadows. The day is nearly done. And then we see it, the ghost-like bird in the field alongside us, fifty feet away. A barn owl.

It seems oblivious to us. There is a tingle of electricity through my daughter’s body. We sit in silence and watch it flit backwards and forwards, like a giant white moth, wings silently caressing the thin twilight air. The owl swings left and right, like a ball rolling from one side of a glass jar to the other, gravity pulling it back down at the end of each arc. Every time it rises, it comes back down the other way. It is so delicate, so fragile, that when it turns away at the end of each