A slice of paradise

East Anglia was a wonderful place to grow up in during the 1960s and 1970s. There were endless opportunities for wildfowling in those secretive marshes along the edges of the Broads if I wasn’t hunting for pheasants and woodcock on my father’s little rough shoot. In the winter there was sport with the local harrier pack and in the summer there were the otterhounds.

“The land had been farmed but yielded slim returns”

But this was high farming country and change was in the air. Wherever I went along fen and river, land was being drained and grazing marshes were being sprayed off and put under the plough. On the arable uplands, ancient hedgerows were being bulldozed and spreading oaks ripped out to make ever bigger fields to accommodate ever