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DAILY TELEGRAPH - PROPERTY - JUNE 2005

I am selling my home. To put this in perspective for you, I have led a peripatetic existence and at a rough count, have lived in 17 different houses, but there are only two of them that I have regarded as HOME. The first one was my Grandmother’s house in Cornwall, where I was bred and buttered. The second one is the house where I am living now and which (‘Events, Dear Boy, events’) I am now forced to sell, with deep regrets. You are entitled to some information. I spent 25 years of my life as a full time Master of Foxhounds (Foxhunting being the Grand Passion of my life) in the course of which, I hunted 5 different packs of hounds in Devon, Wiltshire, Somerset, Yorkshire, finally docking in Northumberland. Somewhere along the way, I collected my wife, a long suffering lady who is the other Grand Passion of my life. She loves and understands hunting and how could she not having had, at one time, no less than 5 MsFH in the family. We have both come to love Northumberland and its people. Northumberland is really England’s last wilderness, although it is now getting a bit frayed round the edges. In spite of this, I can still look out of my windows at end of 40 miles of open hill, which has only one motor road through it.

When we first moved to Northumberland (1982) we borrowed or rented houses. I wanted to buy a hill farm but they were making silly money – sheep were actually making money back then. I had been farming as well as hunting in Yorkshire, so apart from ourselves, the Boy and the dogs, we had 400 ewes to find a home for. We managed this by renting grass keep (Grass Parks) in the summer and a shed in winter. One of the bits that I rented was called Breamish Parks – the Breamish being a river that runs through the valley below. It was a delightful spot with a burn at the bottom and a shelter belt in the middle. Every morning when I was ‘looking the sheep’. I would pause at spot below the wood and look across the little valley to the magnificent sweep of the Cheviot Hills, with the cloud shadows chasing across the steep slopes and with colours that changed from minute to minute. It was a magical spot and I would tell myself what a wonderful place this would be to build a house. Some dreams do come true. The owner telephoned me one day – he would sell me 65 acres, but there must be no haggling and no agents. It was yes or no to the price he named. I bit his hand off and bought it. Breamish Parks was ours.

The land was what used to be called a ‘Greenfield Site’ but must now be called a ‘Zero Development Base’ – it had no house, no buildings, nothing except good sound grazing and a view. The planning permission was granted with surprisingly little hassle. The place where I used to lean on my stick was a wish that came true. Of course the Sheep Shed went up first – it had to be ready for the winter – we celebrated our first Breamish Parks Christmas with a picnic in the shed. I remember it was bright clear day with lying snow and bitterly cold. We were able to move into the house the following August.

What of the house? It lies below the shelter belt which gives it good shelter from the East and the South East – the two ‘airts’ from which all the really nasty weather comes. The house faces west. The prevailing wind is westerly – it can be boisterous and noisy, but it is pretty harmless. Indeed it is rather like me when in my cups. However the tiled roof was clamped on up to highest storm spec. the walls are double clad – breeze blocks within and stone without. So it is pretty snug, especially as all the windows are double glazed. The original house was L shaped with the drawing room and master bedroom facing west whilst the kitchen and dining room face south. It was and is a ‘single story dwelling’. In the beginning some people, referred to it as a ‘bungalow’ and I would forcefully point out that no Northumbrian MFH could possible live in a bungalow – most of them live in houses that look like St Pancras Station and are about as cold. We had both been brought up in large cold houses and it was bliss to be warm – getting soft you see.

I suppose that it is inevitable that after you have caused a house to be built you find things that you wish had been done differently. There have been changes.

The first major change was when my mother came back from Spain, where she had lived for 12 years after father died. She had to be looked after. East of the kitchen is the utility room and beyond that the garage. We knocked through in a corner of the garage and extended to the south. There is a passage which has a library on one side and on the other, there is a bedroom for the Boy and my office – I keep half the window blanked off to prevent me staring at the hills when I should be working. At the end of the passage is a self contained flat (kitchen, bathroom, sitting room, and bedroom) which is where we kennel mother.

In the main house we knocked out a wall of what used to be a between a spare bedroom and the hall way. This makes a spacious hall cum dining room. Then we took out the wall between the kitchen and the original dining room and Hey Presto! A nice big kitchen. Central heating and cooking is from a gas Rayburn. In the drawing room is a splendid Scandanavian fire place that gives off a humungous heat. The last thing, the very last thing that we have done was to take out the west facing window in the drawing room and build out an extension with windows on three sides. This gives a splendid all round view in the summer and can be shut off with folding doors in the winter when the wind ‘blaws cauld and chill’.

So that is the house. As to the land, it is still mostly pasture although we have planted some 15 acres of woodland, which has done well. We also dug a pond in a boggy bit down by the burn and planted up the quarry bank above. The pond has never failed to give pleasure. It is a great breeding ground for frogs and I put some newts in there, but they are seldom seen. There is a resident heron and an occasional kingfisher. Ducks nest there and there is a family of moorhens. A roe doe has taken the quarry wood as her territory and there are often foxes in the whins.

All in all, Breamish Parks is a magical spot and we both love it. My wife and I had hoped to be buried in the Quarry Wood, where various much loved dogs are also buried. Our 20 odd years here have been a happy time. I declined farming about 10 years ago, but in the 80s max Hastings came to stay and hunt on two occasions. From that beginning came my column in the Weekend, which maintained for 17 years, until I was defenestrated some 18 months ago. I do not complain about being ‘discontinued’ (I realise that I am woefully lacking in Political Correctness) but it was done in a most uncouth way. Nine books have been written and published from here. It has been a happy time – it is such a happy welcoming little house, but now we are off to France – for better or for worse, but certainly for lunch. We shall both miss Breamish Parks. It has been our Home and losing your Home is a small bereavement. I hope that the new incumbents will love and enjoy it as much as we have. I also hope that they will come to love Northumberland and the wonderful people of the Hills.

I just hope that, in France, we shall be able to find a house that will also become a Home – there’s no place like Home.

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