The following is an extract from my original manuscript of my book 'When Sophie Met Darcy Day' Published by Harper Collins in March 2011.
It describes in detail the move from Greatwood in Devon to Wiltshire. I think it is interesting because it portrays the lead up to our move and the enormity of the decision in upping sticks and moving the charity.
Chapter 7 Rainscombe Hill Farm
Michael was driven. He began to scour all the newspapers for suitable alternative premises.
Whenever he thought that perhaps one could be suitable, he would take off early in the morning and return late at night. He always put a brave face on it, but sometimes the length of the journeys and the fact that he couldn’t seem to find anything vaguely suitable made him secretly doubt if we were ever going to succeed. In addition, our car was 20 years old, unreliable and it was hard to find enough money to afford petrol for long journeys. It was a case of food for us or fill the car.
An agent, whom we knew, had advised Michael that a farm lease was on the market in Wiltshire. The agent recommended him to waste no time in viewing it.
I hadn’t shown much interest, as he yet again went missing for the day. When he finally came back he told me that he had stopped at a town called Marlborough in Wiltshire. He had gone into a pub and ordered a cup of coffee. As he sat at a table on the pavement to drink it, he told me that out of all the places that he had visited, this was the one place that he felt that we could be happy. I hadn’t been enthralled by this little piece of information and asked him ‘how could he possibly envisage us being happy in a town, had he plans for the horses to run around the pub car park?’
Of course, what I hadn’t known, until he finally ventured the information was that as he had sat and drank his coffee outside the pub, he had already viewed the farm and had offered to take it. Thirty other people had been queuing up for it the same day and he knew that if he didn’t move we would lose the opportunity.
Furthermore’, he added as he took another swallow of pink gin, his bravery getting stronger by the moment, ‘I have made an appointment to view the farm with you tomorrow’. He took another long slow drink and added:
‘I’ll get my own supper then’.
It was a silent drive on that dreary day in the winter of 2001, as we made the long journey from Devon up to Wiltshire.
We drove through Marlborough and Michael pointed out the memorable pub (it must be the only pub that he has ever gone into and asked for a cup of coffee). I could understand what had attracted him to the town. It had a broad high street with old buildings and shops on either side with a church at each end.
Having left Marlborough we drove for about two miles until we turned into a long lane leading from the main road. I noticed a field that was full of docks, it was poached and there were several broken old bits of jumps lying around, this only added to my gloom and bad temper. We approached Rainscombe Hill Farm and were met by the agent. A cottage overlooked good farm buildings. We weren’t much interested in the cottage.
We just wanted to find out if we could make any sense out of the buildings for the horses. We were told that the present tenant had sub-let the cottage and 13 acres to some Eastern Europeans and had also sub-let one of the barns to some people who had pygmy goats. In addition a few make shift stables had been erected for separate liveries. It was a mess.
The stables were filthy, a bit of Perspex was suspended precariously over one of the open barns which banged and flapped in the wind. A good concrete yard was inches thick in years of mud with grass growing out of the cracks. Grey breezeblocks were everywhere. The drainpipes were broken and blocked with weeds sticking up from them. The yard was full of rubbish, in one area there were hundreds of old rubber tyres which had been used for silage. Inside one of the barns was an old milking parlour which had been ripped out. Electric cables dangled from the ceilings and the walls and the pit had been filled with bricks, old bits of equipment and iron. A small lean-to had clearly housed the milk tank at some stage.
As we looked into one of the barns, we did ask ourselves if we were always to be beset with welfare cases. We saw a skeletal mare that had been shut in on her own. Out of sheer desperation and starvation, she was eating her own droppings. One of her hind fetlocks had dropped to such a degree that she had no alternative but to use it to walk on. We knew that whatever we decided to do about the farm, we had to sort out this mare.
We were also sorry for a scraggy German Shepherd dog that had been tethered by a long heavy chain to one of the buildings. We could see the tracks that she had made as she tried to gain attention from anyone that passed by.
Michael continued to look around and chatted to the agent. He said that he thought that we were interested but only if we could have all the barns, (in which case the goats would have to go) and if we could have more land.
I knew then that his decision had been made, if he negotiated the land then that was it, we were moving.
I also knew that there wasn’t much point in arguing; once Michael determined on something he was immoveable.
Reluctantly I could see the potential: the barns were large and airy; we could make stables to our design, ones that horses could have direct communication with others and once the fields were re-seeded the horses could go out in herds.
The agent promised that he would try and sort out our further requests. There must have been something about us that made him decide that we would be good tenants. The advertisement that he had placed in the Horse and Hound had brought forth all kinds of people to look around all of whom declared an interest in the farm, but none had demanded anything like the sorts of things we had. It would have been much easier for him to take someone else.
He also promised us that he would get in touch with the tenants and get them to come and sort out the poor mare. When we had pointed her out to him, he, too, had been shocked about her condition.
Just as we were about to leave, we thought that we better take a peep into the cottage. One of the Russians had been lurking about, he didn’t look a particularly nice chap, he scowled and raised his hand threateningly as we entered, as indeed he had when I had attempted to make a fuss of his dog.
The cottage was small, unkempt, and dirty. An ancient oil burning stove was at one end of a narrow room and another small room contained a sink, and with filthy white cupboards, most of them hanging from the hinges.
There were a couple of small downstairs rooms with three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. The whole cottage was grimy and horrid as only houses can go when no-one cares about them. I won’t describe the bathroom. A garden door led out into an overgrown area that must have been a garden at some stage. There was a good box hedge on one side and some kind of trellis that was held up by ivy. Beyond this, there was an area overgrown by nettles and brambles to such a degree that they all but covered a rotten falling down old hen house.
We could see that we could make something out of it. It could be pretty given a bit of work, the only problem would be fitting what remained of our furniture into it. Despite having sold a lot of it to look after the horses, we would still have too much to go into this tiny little place.
However, crucially, it overlooked the yard so that I would be able to hear any problems that may arise in the night.
When we returned to Greatwood, I couldn’t help but think that the place we had just seen was such a far cry from this, our home. I pondered over it all as I sat in our kitchen, and watched the dogs who, exhausted by their joy at our return, were sleeping on their beds in front of the Aga. Of course, my period of reverie was only achieved after I had cleared up what remained of a few cushions that Lucy, our Labrador, had eaten.
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