‘That’s just the latest,’ said Matt. ‘Those farmers in isolated locations look forward to market as a chance for a trip out, to meet people with similar problems. The only other person we talk to much is the bank manager. When the rest of the local marts go, that’ll be it, Ben. That’ll be it for livestock farming in this county.’

‘Oh, come on, Matt.’

‘No, I’m telling you the truth. In ten years’ time, I’ll either still be farming, or drawing the social, and that’s a fact. There was an article in the Farmers Guardian a while ago that said we’d see the end of small farms by 2010.’

‘There are still a few left, though.’

‘Aye, a few.’

Cooper was silent for a moment, savouring his Towns, letting its flavour wash away the strange chemical taste that seemed to have settled at the back of his throat since he’d first visited Pity Wood Farm.

‘Do you really think it will happen, Matt?’ he asked.

‘I’m damn certain it will. I think it’s all planned out somewhere. In London or in Brussels, I don’t know. But I reckon there’s a dossier sitting in some bureaucrat’s desk drawer right now, showing the target date for the closure of the last small hill farm. They’ve got our fate worked out, and there’ll be nothing we can do about it.’

‘Nothing? You could start planning for it now, couldn’t you?’

‘Oh, yes? You try coming in exhausted after a long day and sitting down to do the government’s bloody paperwork. Then see how much time you have to start planning your future. Not to mention trying to spend a bit of time with your family. You see, that’s the trouble with us farmers. We’ve got this suicidal urge to farm. If we were sane, we’d have said “sod it” by now.’

Cooper felt a familiar niggle of worry about his brother surface at the back of his mind. He’d suffered severe spells of despondency himself, and he knew what it was like when things looked really black and the future held no hope. There was such a temptation to consider the easy way out, the one that would take all those burdens off your shoulders in an instant.

He could only hope and pray that the tendency wasn’t present in his brother, at least not to any greater degree. Matt had seen this happen to people he knew – too many of them, over the years. The highest rates of suicide in the UK were among farmers. They became very attached to their patch of land and could find it hard to cope, particularly when a problem such as foot-and-mouth occurred.