Thurlow Lake and the fish are another responsibility. We have rainbow and brown trout, perch, rudd and crucian carp. The fishing rights are retained by the family, though they have to be shared with the heron, an occasional cormorant and even very occasionally a passing osprey. A few fish find their way into the Great Thurlow House canal and thereby into the river, so the river is quite well stocked too. We have the occasional trouble with poachers but the worst problem we ever had was from a violent thunderstorm in June 1995 which took all the oxygen out of the water and left the big fish dead. The other inhabitants of the lake, of course, are the toads ­ literally thousands of them, which travel there to breed from miles around.

This is a big estate to manage ­ 12,000 acres locally including the Thurlows, Great Wratting, Withersfield and Carlton, but some 16,000 acres in all when you add in the land in Horseheath, Balsham and Ashdon. It's hard to control properly with just three full-time keepers, one part-timer and one lad. There used to be at least 5 beat-keepers and they knew every inch of their beat. We now travel on four wheels and the territory has expanded, but we still get round as best we can. It's a dawn-to-dusk job, with some night-watching thrown in just to deter the poachers; and I don't often take holidays (not as often as my wife would like!). But it's a way of life as well as a job and I wouldn't have it any other way. The countryside has changed a lot, of course, and not usually for the better. There's much less wildlife and fewer birds because of the use of pesticides; just think how the once-common sparrows have become rarer along with the larks and linnets. People sometimes think of us just as hunters and at school our children hardly dare mention what we do because they'll be misunderstood. But in fact we are great conservationists and usually care more than anyone else about the wildlife and about preserving the countryside and the country ways.