The Salvation Army brass band marched down St Michael’s Road past Evans’ chip shop, pom-pommed round the corner and up the little bit of hill to Elmsleigh Road and on down over the railway crossing to the seafront. The houses were very still and the streets empty but Mam’s chatter ruffled the sabbath hush. Clennon Valley smelt of woodsmoke and tired trees. A flock of longtailed tits exploded from the hedgerow thorns and Mam and I crept along the brow of the sheep pasture gathering the mushrooms and dropping them into the basket. She wore old wellingtons and a green headscarf. The October sun lit the blond tresses stirring on her forehead; and to me she was the loveliest creature God had ever made. Golden brown countryside rolled around us. A buzzard skirled; a green woodpecker undulated away like a little kite being pulled behind a running child; rooks cawed from the stubble.

‘That’s pretty,’ Mam said, and I followed her gaze.

Blue mist filled the lap of the valley and from it rose a heron, climbing through the sunshine and swinging west towards the Dart.

‘I love autumn,’ she continued.

Under the hedge a crow jauntily walked up the carcass of a sheep to get at the eyes.

‘I like crows,’ I said, knowing the remark would be unpopular.

‘Crows peck out lambs’ eyes, Bri.’

‘Why did God make ’em then, Mam?’

‘Maybe he don’t care about animals. There’s lots of things he don’t care about – like the little children who got killed when that German plane hit the church in Torquay.’

‘I shot a bluetit with my catapault last Wednesday.’

‘Why? Bluetits are lovely little birds.’

‘I gave it to Tacker Willocks’ ferret.’

‘You mustn’t kill songbirds, Bri. We used to feed our ferrets on sparrows in feather and chickens’ heads. Never bluetits. Sparrows eat grain and there’s lots of them.’

‘Can I have an air pistol, Mam?’

‘No you bloody can’t. You’re enough trouble as it is.’

‘I’ll run away from home.’

She grinned and said, ‘Good.’

After the roast dinner which we ate around one o’clock Mam and Dad took me for a long walk. We went up Fisher Street, down Winner Street which was one of Paignton’s oldest thoroughfares, climbed Colley End Road to Kings Ash and wandered out into the farmland. The lanes were deep, narrow and muddy. Buff- and brown-speckled oak leaves rustled down to swell the mush of yellow hazel and elm leaves in the red gruel. But we did not miss many of the filberts and at Blagdon Dad filled his pockets with walnuts.

The country road ran crookedly from Barton Pines to Totnes, passing high above the coombes and spinneys before dropping into the ancient hamlet of Berry Pomeroy. The vast panorama of South, West and Mid-Devon opened before us – a far-off glimpse of Dartmoor straight ahead and, to the left, hill upon rounded hill racing through the distant haze of the South Hams. One day I promised myself I’d walk to those dim horizons and discover what it was that saddened and excited me.

Sometimes Dad carried me on his shoulders whistling tunes like ‘Roll out the Barrel’ and ‘Colonel Bogey’, or singing snippets of gibberish:

‘Articabs and choakajiz, ten barb roobi-a-stick’ (Artichokes and cabbages, rhubarb ten bob a stick).

Then we headed for home up the main Totnes Road into dimpsey. From the hilltop we caught a glimpse of the sea and Berry Head lighthouse winking from the grey darkfall. And the churchbells rang out right across Devon, village and town taking up the music so that it filled every corner of Sunday.

Under the oxblood-coloured plough of Blagdon Hill the church of Collaton St Mary stood among tall trees, its windows glowing palely golden. Opposite the churchyard was a small meadow where the brook ran against the hedge. We stopped by the five-barred gate to feed the horses and Dad called to them, his voice thick with the affection that always flavoured his chats with animals. O the lovely Devon burr softening the Rs and the words turning on his tongue like earth behind the plough – heavy and rich.

The horses were suddenly there in the dimpsey, breathing the scent of crushed grass. Six dark shapes nuzzled each other and lifted their heads as if to drink the bell-music. Then they raced away to the shadows of the great, black elms. Those work animals found true liberty at dusk. They gazed from deep, mysterious dreams into fabled places where horses are kings. Turning to walk on I heard them thundering around the field and I heard them again yesterday when I re-read Dylan Thomas’s ‘Fern Hill’.

Brian Carter, Yesterday’s Harvest, 1982