Six vehicles or less were considered an acceptable size for an encampment, particularly if it was at a distance from neighbors and posed no threat to road safety. The landowner could apply for eviction, but it would take time. The best course was to negotiate the length of stay through the Traveler Liaison Officer at the local authority and avoid unnecessary confrontation with the visitors. The sergeant reminded Dick that farmers had recently been arrested in Lincolnshire and Essex for using threatening behavior against groups who had invaded their land. The police were sympathetic to landowners but their first priority was to avoid anyone getting hurt.
"Godammit!" Dick rasped, cupping his hand across his mouth to muffle the words. "Who wrote these rules? You telling me they can park wherever they fancy, do whatever they like, and if the poor sap who owns the bloody land objects, you bastards'll arrest him? Yeah… yeah… I'm sorry… no offense intended. So what rights do the poor sods who live here have?"
In return for occupying the site, travelers were asked to agree to certain conditions. These concerned appropriate disposal of household and human waste, the proper control of animals, health and safety issues, and agreements not to reoccupy the same site within a period of three months or use threatening or intimidatory behavior.
Dick's ruddy face turned apoplectic. "You call those rights?" he hissed. "We're expected to offer house-room to a bunch of crooks and all we get in exchange is a promise that they'll behave in a halfway civilized manner." He shot an angry glance toward the line. "And how do you define threatening and intimidating behavior anyway? There's a dozen of them blocking my way and they're all wearing masks over their faces… not to mention some damn dogs and the 'keep out' notice they've slung across the track. What's that if it's not intimidating?" He hunched his shoulders lower. "Yes, well, that's the problem," he muttered, "no one knows who owns it. It's an acre of woodland on the edge of the village."
He listened for a moment. "Jesus wept! Whose side are you on, for Christ's sake?… Yeah, well, it might not be an issue for you but it sodding well is for me. You wouldn't have a job if I didn't pay my taxes."
He snapped the mobile closed and shoved it into his pocket before returning to the Jeep and yanking the door open. A ripple of laughter ran along the line.
"Got a problem, have you, Mr. Weldon?" said the voice in a mocking tone. "Let me guess. The busies have told you to phone the council negotiator."
Dick ignored him and climbed behind the wheel.
"Don't forget to tell her that no one owns this land. She lives in Bridport, and she'll be mighty stroppy if she has to drive all this way on her holiday to learn it from us."
Dick started the engine and turned the Jeep broadside to the line. "Who are you?" he demanded through the open window. "How do you know so much about Shenstead?"
But the question was greeted with silence. Furiously grinding his gears, Dick made a three-point turn and returned home to discover that the negotiator was indeed a woman, did live in Bridport, and refused to give up her holiday to negotiate over a piece of unclaimed land that squatters had as much right to occupy as anyone in the village.
Mr. Weldon should never have mentioned that the land was in dispute. Without that knowledge she could have negotiated a length of stay that would have suited neither party. It would have been too short for the travelers and too long for the villagers. All land in England and Wales was owned by someone, but a failure to register left it open to opportunists.
For whatever reason, Mr. Weldon had volunteered information that suggested solicitors would become involved-"No, I'm sorry, sir, you were a fool to take advice from the squatters. This is a gray area of law…"-and there was little she could do until agreement was reached on who owned the land. Of course it was unjust. Of course it went against every norm of legal fairness. Of course she was on the side of the taxpayers.
But…
SHENSTEAD MANOR, SHENSTEAD, DORSET
1 October 2001
Dear Captain Smith,
My solicitor informs me that if I attempt to contact you, you will sue. For that reason I should make it clear that I am writing without Mark Ankerton's knowledge and that the entire responsibility for this letter is mine. Please be assured, too, that any suit you bring will not be contested and I will pay any compensation that a court sees fit to award.
In these circumstances, I am sure you are wondering why I am writing so potentially costly a letter. Call it a gamble, Captain Smith. I am wagering the cost of damages against a one in ten-perhaps even a one in a hundred-chance that you will respond.
Mark has described you as an intelligent, well-balanced, successful, and brave young woman, who feels an absolute loyalty to her parents and has no desire to learn anything about people who are strangers to her. He tells me your family has a long history, and that your ambition is to take over your father's farm when you leave the army. In addition, he says you are a credit to Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and suggests that your adoption was the best thing that could have happened to you.
Please believe there is nothing he could have said that would have given me greater pleasure. My wife and I always hoped that your future was in the hands of good people. Mark has repeated several times that you have no curiosity about your relations, to the extent that you do not wish even to know their names. Should your determination remain as strong, then throw this letter away now and do not read on.
I have always been fond of fables. When my children were small I used to read Aesop to them. They were particularly fond of stories about the Fox and the Lion, for reasons that will become obvious. I am reluctant to put too much information into this letter, for fear of giving you the impression that I care little for your strongly held feelings. To that end, I enclose a variation on an Aesop fable and two newspaper clippings. From what Mark tells me, you will certainly be able to read between the lines of all three and draw some accurate conclusions.
Suffice it to say that my wife and I failed dismally to achieve the same high standard of parenting with our two children as the Smiths achieved with you. It would be easy to lay the blame for this at the door of the army-the absence of a father figure whenever I was away on duty, foreign postings when neither parent was at home, the influences they fell under at boarding school, the lack of supervision during holidays at home-but that would be wrong, I think.
The fault lay with us. We overindulged them to compensate for our absences and interpreted their wild behavior as attention-seeking. We also took the view-shamefully, I fear-that the family name was worth something and rarely, if ever, did we ask them to face up to their mistakes. The greatest loss was you, Nancy. For the worst of reasons-snobbery-we helped our daughter find a "good husband" by keeping her pregnancy secret, and in the process gave away our only grandchild. If I were a religious man, I would say it was a punishment for setting so much store by family honor. We abandoned you rashly to protect our reputation without any understanding of your fine qualities or what the future might hold.
The irony of all this hit me very strongly when Mark told me how unimpressed you were by your Lockyer-Fox connection. In the end, a name is only a name and a family's worth resides in the sum of its parts not in the label they have chosen to attach to themselves. Had I come to this view earlier, I doubt I would be writing this letter. My children would have grown up to be stable members of society, and you would have been welcomed for who you were, not banished for what you were.
I will finish by saying that this is the only letter I shall write. If you don't reply or if you instruct a solicitor to sue, I shall accept that the gamble is lost. I have purposefully not explained my real reason for wanting to meet you, although you may suspect that your status as my only grandchild has something to do with it.
I believe Mark told you that you would be doing a great kindness by agreeing to see me. May I add that you would also be offering the hope of redress to someone who is dead.
Yours sincerely,
James Lockyer-Fox
The Lion, the Elderly Fox,
And the Generous Ass
The Lion, the Fox, and the Ass lived together in intimate friendship for several years until the Lion grew scornful of the Fox's age and derided the Ass for her generosity to strangers. He demanded the respect due his superior might, and insisted her generosity be shown only to him. The Ass, in great trepidation, assembled all her wealth into one large heap and offered it to the Fox for safekeeping until the Lion mended his ways. The Lion burst into a great rage and devoured the Ass. Then he requested the Fox do him the favor of making the division of the Ass's wealth. The elderly Fox, aware that he was no match for the Lion, pointed to the pile and invited the Lion to take it. The Lion, assuming the Fox had learned sense from the death of the Ass, said, "Who has taught you, my very excellent fellow, the art of division? You are perfect to a fraction." The Fox replied, "I learned the value of generosity from my friend, the Ass." Then he raised his voice and called upon the animals of the jungle to put the Lion to flight and share the Ass's fortune among themselves. "In this way," he told the Lion, "you will have nothing and the Ass will be avenged."
But the Lion devoured the Fox and took the Fox's fortune instead.
Lockyer-Fox-Ailsa Flora, unexpectedly at home on 6 March 2001, aged 78. Dearly loved wife of James, mother of Leo and Elizabeth, and generous friend to many. Funeral service at St. Peter's, Dorchester on Thursday 15 March at 12:30. No flowers please, but donations if desired to Dr. Barnardo's or the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
CORONER'S VERDICT
A coroner's inquest ruled yesterday that Ailsa Lockyer-Fox, 78, of Shenstead Manor died of natural causes despite an inconclusive postmortem and pathologist's report which failed to identify a reason for death. A police investigation was launched after bloodstains were found near the body and neighbors alleged an angry argument on the night of her death.
Mrs. Lockyer-Fox was discovered on the terrace of Shenstead Manor on the morning of 6 March by her husband. She was wearing nightclothes and had been dead for some time. Colonel Lockyer-Fox, who gave evidence at the inquest, said he believed she must have risen during the night to feed the foxes that were regular visitors to Shenstead Manor. "I can only assume she lost consciousness and died of cold." He denied that the French windows were locked on the inside when he came downstairs, or that Mrs. Lockyer-Fox was unable to regain entry to the house had she wished.
The coroner referred to one neighbor's claim that she heard a man and woman arguing shortly after midnight on 6 March. Colonel Lockyer-Fox denied that he and his wife were the people in question, and the coroner accepted his statement. He also accepted that bloodstains found on flagstones two meters from the body were animal and not human. In dismissing the speculation that has surrounded Ailsa Lockyer-Fox's death, he said: "Rumor in this case was entirely unfounded. I hope today's verdict will bring an end to it. For whatever reason, Mrs. Lockyer-Fox decided to go outside on a cold night, inadequately dressed, and tragically collapsed."
The daughter of a wealthy Scottish landowner, Ailsa Lockyer-Fox was well known for her campaigns against cruelty to animals. "She will be greatly missed," said a spokesman for the Dorset branch of the League Against Cruel Sports. "She believed that all life had value and should be treated with respect." She was also a generous benefactor of local and national children's homes and charities. Her personal estate, valued at £1.2m, passes to her husband.
Debbie Fowler
Kosovo
Tuesday, 6 November
Dear Colonel Lockyer-Fox,
Your letter was forwarded to me by my mother. I, too, have an interest in fabular culture. The bones of your fable are "The Lion, the Fox, and the Ass," one of whose morals could be described as: "Might makes Right." You could have applied a similar moral to your own tale: "The Might of Many makes Right," since the implication is that you are dismantling your wife's fortune in order to give it away to more deserving causes than your son-presumably children and animal charities. This seems to me a very sensible course, particularly if he was responsible for her death. I am not a great believer in leopards (or Lions) changing their spots, so I remain cynical that he will "mend his ways."
I am not entirely clear from the clipping re: the coroner's verdict who was the subject of the speculation following your wife's death, although I suspect it may have been you. However, if I have read your fable correctly then your son is Leo the Lion, your wife was Ailsa the Ass, and you are the Fox who witnessed her murder. So why didn't you inform the police of this instead of allowing speculation to grow? Or is this another case of hiding family "mistakes" under the carpet? Your strategy would seem to be that redress for your wife is best achieved by denying your son his inheritance, but isn't justice through the courts the only true redress? Whatever instability problems your son has will not be improved by allowing him to get away with murder.
You seem to refer to this in your last sentence. "The Lion devoured the Fox and took the Fox's fortune instead." This is obviously a prediction and not a fact, otherwise you could not have written to me, but I strongly question how acknowledging me as your only grandchild can shift this prediction in your favor. I fear it will do the exact opposite and force your son into precipitate action. In view of the fact that I have no interest at all in your or your wife's money-and have no wish to confront your son over it-I suggest it would be infinitely wiser to seek the advice of your solicitor, Mark Ankerton, in respect of putting the money beyond your son's reach.
Without wishing to be offensive, I see no reason at all why you should allow yourself to be "devoured" so tamely, nor why I should be proposed as a stalking horse.
Yours sincerely,
Nancy Smith
Nancy Smith (Captain, Royal Engineers)
SHENSTEAD MANOR, SHENSTEAD, DORSET
30 November 2001
Dear Nancy,
Please think no more about it. Everything you say is completely justified. I wrote in a moment of depression and used emotive language that was unforgivable. I did not wish in any way to give you the impression that you would be in confrontation with Leo. Mark has constructed a will that honors my obligations to my family while giving the bulk of the estate to worthy causes. It was an old man's foolish whim and arrogance that wanted the "family silver" to pass intact to family.
I fear my last letter may have given you a false impression of both myself and Leo. Inadvertently I may have suggested that I am perceived in warmer terms than he. This is far from the truth. Leo is extraordinarily charming. I, by contrast-indeed Ailsa, too, when she was alive-are (were) rather shy people who appear stiff-necked and pompous in company. Until recently I would have said that our friends perceived us differently, but the isolation in which I now find myself has shattered my confidence. With the honorable exception of Mark Ankerton, suspicion, it seems, is more easily attracted than dispelled.
You pose the question: How will acknowledging you as my only grandchild benefit me? It won't. I see that now. It was an idea conceived some time ago when Ailsa came to share my view that we would do our children more harm than good by giving them access to large amounts of money on our deaths. However, Mark's view was that Leo would challenge any will that gave large bequests to charities on the basis that the money was family money and should pass to the next generation. Leo may or may not have won, but he would certainly have found it harder to challenge a legitimate heir in the shape of a grandchild.
My wife was always a believer in giving people second chances-the "mending of ways" that you referred to-and I believe she also hoped that recognition of our grandchild would persuade our son to rethink the future. Since hearing from you, I have decided to abandon this plan. It was a selfish attempt to keep the estate intact, and took no account at all of your love and loyalty to your rightful family.
You are an admirable and wise young woman with a marvelous future ahead of you, and I wish you long life and happiness. As the money is of no interest to you, nothing can be gained
by involving you in my family's difficulties.
Be confident that your identity and whereabouts will remain a secret between Mark and myself, and that you will under no circumstances feature in any legal documents relating to this family.
With gratitude for your response and the warmest good wishes for whatever comes your way in life,
James Lockyer-Fox
6
SHENSTEAD MANOR-CHRISTMAS EVE TO
BOXING DAY, 2001
Ankerton's faith that James Lockyer-Fox would never have harmed his wife was under assault on all sides, not least from James himself. True, Mark had forced his presence in the house, refusing to accept the Colonel's cool assurances that he was quite able to face his first Christmas alone in nearly fifty years, but James's secretive behavior and inability to carry a conversation for more than a few minutes were deeply worrying to his lawyer.
He wouldn't look Mark in the eye, and there were tremors in his hands and voice. His weight had decreased alarmingly. Always meticulous about his appearance in the past, he had become dirty and unkempt, with straggly hair, stained clothes, and patches of silver stubble on his chin. To Mark, for whom the Colonel had always been an authoritative figure, such a dramatic change in physical and mental strength was shocking. Even the house smelled of dirt and decay, and Mark wondered if Vera Dawson had compounded her legendary laziness by ceasing to work at all.
He blamed himself for not having come down since August, when he'd delivered Nancy Smith's verdict to the old man. At the time James had taken it well and had instructed Mark to draw up a will that would result in the breakup of the Lockyer-Fox estate with only minimum bequests going to his two children. It had remained unsigned, however, with James sitting on the draft document for months, apparently reluctant to take what he perceived as an irrevocable step. When urged over the telephone to voice his concerns, his only answer had been an angry one: "Stop harassing me. I still have my faculties. I'll make the decision in my own good time."
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