He was immediately welcoming to Dottie, introduced her to several friendly people working there, explaining that the place was also manned on a daily basis by a team of volunteers.

'This is Mrs Totton,' he indicated a rather distinguished-looking lady, who must have been a stunning blonde in her youth. 'She's on duty today.' He gave Dottie an encouraging smile.

'What would you like to know?'

Dottie had prepared carefully for this meeting, and it proved informative. Was the Forest facing a crisis, she asked?

'The challenges of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries are new; but they grow out of the past as you'd expect,' the careful historian answered. 'The reason for the protests and fires is simple enough. The commoners aren't only having a hard time as farmers, with terrible prices for cattle, pigs and ponies. The newcomers, from outside, are paying such high prices for their pony paddocks that the price of land is being driven beyond the farmers' reach. Above all, they feel that the modern world - Forestry Commission, local government, central government - just despises them. And yet they really are the Forest, you know.

'Then you have the degrading of the ancient Forest environment: careless campers and tourists generally.'

'Thousands of cars?' she suggested.

'Yes. But ninety per cent of people in cars never go further than fifty feet from the road. The new influx of bicycles may prove more damaging. We'll see.' Dottie had noticed a lone bicyclist on her way to Grockleton's Inclosure, riding through the trees, churning up the ground as he went. She nodded.

He smiled ruefully. 'As always, we want tourists for their income but not for the damage they do. That's another big subject, of course.

'But there is a third, long-term danger - the great threat of the new century, you might say.'

'Building?'

'Exactly. The massive increase in housing needs, the existence of a huge area scarcely touched by housing development. Some people think we should protect the Forest by making it a National Park, which would make development extremely difficult; others, especially the commoners, fear that might take away from the power of the verderers who, for the last hundred and fifty years, have been their one protection.' He smiled again. 'We could discuss any or all of those.'

They did, for some time. They helped her put together a list of people to whom she should talk.

'May I add myself to that list?' Mrs Totton enquired. A gentle nod from the kindly historian indicated to Dottie that she should accept. 'Good,' said the elderly lady. 'Come to tea on Friday. Come a little early, say at four.'

'If you really want to get the feel of the commoners,' Peter Pride now cut in, 'You ought to go to a pony sale. There's one this Thursday.'