"Seven years ago, I moved into a farm on a hill near Wales. Rise Farm was run by Bert and Alison Howell, a couple in their seventies whose son had gone to live in Spain and whose main source of assistance was now their two s – Bryn and a dog who for a long time I genuinely believed to be called Come Here You Useless Bugger. Rise was one of a declining number of small farms making the best of the high places in the , places which would once have represented a generous living but which now struggled by on rents, subsidy and the heart-attack price of lamb."