Down here in the Vale, we tend to try to get on with our lives & ignore the latest edicts that eminate from the bowls of the Westminster Village as much as possible. During the winter months, our three local hunts will be out & if you are driving home late at night & see a set of lights coming towards you, the real issue is which side of the road to pass them on. In fact these days, with farmers now being funded by the taxpayer to leave their land economically inactive it doesn’t matter so much if you have to put over Landrover through the hedge to avoid an oncoming vehicle that is tacking up the road towards you.

Yes, in these yerrrr parrrrts, crop damage is taken very very seriously …. except when it is self-inflicted crop circles. Barring housing schemes, a few post-pub patterns in a corn field are just about the most profitable crop a farmer can grow: as evidenced by the huge numbers of foreign camera teams that can be found in our local boozers just before harvest.

Now as you would expect, the local population comes from all walks of life, from the super rich & the odd Field Marshal to the agricultural worker. Drive through some hamlets in the evening & you will see a tractor outside every house. In other villages you will see a brace of Chelsea tractors outside every house - & as villages go, Urchfont is one of those sorts of villages.

Over the last few years (& because it has one of the best primary schools in the country) it has become the Mecca for London refugees & now richly deserves its title of Urchfont-upon-Thames aside for being famous for among other things, its annual scarecrow festival.