Opinion: Hay meadow work prompts cricket pitch fantasy

If all goes to plan, we’ll be clearing the back meadow of hay bales in the next couple of weeks.

And when it’s done, I have a little tradition. I walk out across the short green grass, freshly mown, and relish how smooth and even the ground is underneath.

See also: Opinion – it’s great to see Young Farmers’ focus and passion

About the author

Charlie Flindt

Charlie Flindt is a National Trust tenant in Hampshire, now farming 40ha of recently “de-arabled” land with his wife Hazel – who still runs a livestock enterprise. He also writes books and plays in two local bands.

Read more articles by Charlie Flindt

Mind you, it flippin’ well should be, after all that slitting and rolling back in the early spring.

I look north to the site of the Battle of Cheriton, south to the Millbarrow Down, and think what a splendid spot it would be to revive Hinton Ampner Cricket Club.

There was one once, back when even tiny hamlets could rustle up 11 good men and true.

The pitch was just west of Hinton Ampner House, now buried under tonnes of building spoil.

My little Field of Dreams fantasy always crashes and burns when realities emerge.

It’s bad enough that the square would have to be laid east/west and the wartime ridge-and-furrows would play havoc with the bounce (although a chain is a vital measurement on a wicket).

But it’s the telegraph pole stuck exactly where I’d be asking for “two, please, ump” that really gets in the way – literally.

A recent email from my landlord brought fresh hope.

It explained that SSE (our local supplier) and the South Downs National Park were planning to “underground” all the electricity cables on the estate using a “pot” of money set aside for the purpose.

I had a school flashback: first, to an English lesson where using underground as a verb would have been frowned upon, and second, to a physics lesson where the merits of overhead power lines were discussed – cheap to install, easy to repair and running cool to minimise resistance and thus transmission costs.

Then there’s a bit of maths. Near Wye in Kent recently they buried 2km of overhead wire. The cost? £485,000.

That’s some “pot”.

How about the environment? It’s hard to believe the National Trust – which now scolds its villagers for gleaning fallen ash on eco grounds – is keen on months and miles of digging.

Four decades of hands-on arable farming did teach me to hate those poles, especially when I switched from New Holland TC combines with their sensible flip-over grain tank lid to a Tucano with its fragile and high-reaching butterfly set-up.

Driving under those low-hanging cables was terrifying, and we’d end up subdividing fields. Calls to SSE for longer poles yielded nothing.

It’s true that the countryside will look better without cables and telegraph poles (which defines the whole thing as a “vanity project”), but I’m very much looking forward to the Law of Unintended Consequences kicking in.

What are the long-term effects of underground hot wires? Where will birds gather? How long will it be before some nutter starts a campaign to preserve historic telegraph poles?

At what stage will SSE customers look at their bills and go: “Hold on a minute…”?

As for my cricket pitch – I think my days in white are over.

All my kit, including my sacred vintage Newbery bat, has vanished to the South Coast with my son.

Still, the Back Meadow without pole and cables? Time for Plan B: a microlight strip. I wonder if the South Downs National Park would level off ridge-and-furrow?