Farming for wildlife at Vane Farm.

The shoreline below the house.

Quentin Ballantyne was our neighbouring farmer at Benarty. His family occupied an imposing house that was tucked below the crags and so received even less winter sun than our house. At one time the Ballantynes farmed the Vane as well but sold it to the RSPB and then rented the flat bits back from us. Our relationship was always interesting, and sometimes quite tricky. He loved to wind us up, and really had it in for Gordon the Warden who lived between him and us, but he made some effort to get along with us as individuals while still remaining a thorn in the side of the Nature Conservancy and the RSPB.

Quentin would turn up at the kitchen door bearing gifts of vegetables and potatoes for planting by Hanna, and he could be really charming. He was quite distinguished looking with a twinkle in his eye, but he chose to play the yokel role by looking a bit like a tramp; unshaven with holes in his jumper, an old flat cap, and faded cords held up with a knotted RSPB tie. This look was very much a deliberate act, designed to wind us up. He was actually from a wealthy Borders clan that owned woolen mills (and salmon fishing) along the Tweed. I used to encounter him at the weekly cattle market in Perth where he dressed up to the nines and looked like the aristocratic farmer he really was.
It was a good ploy to look down-at-heel when negotiating with the RSPB. Quentin wanted his rent reduced and challenged the Society when we tried to raise it. John Hunt (our Reserves Manager) stood his ground so Quentin took us to a tribunal that was held at Vane Farm. We were confident that we would win and felt that having the meeting on our home turf would be an advantage. John represented the RSPB but Quentin brought in a cousin who was a lawyer. He plonked a tape recorder down on the table and took charge of the proceedings from the start. We lost.

Over time we slowly became more accepted by the farmers around the Loch. One factor was that we took part in community life and got to know people. The local ceilidhs were the social apex of the year and we eagerly anticipated them.  "The Whistling Postie," Tom Webster, was an absolute treasure and he used to hold forth at weekly dances in Kinross that were organised for the tourists, and he would get a VIP police escort home if he had too much to drink. But the farm ceilidhs were the real deal.

Ploughing

We never attended the Young Farmers doo as we were told that it usually got a bit out of hand. Maybe we missed out on a good night! The big Ceilidh at Kinnesswood wasn't exactly sedate either; it was a total blast from start to finish.  The venue was a huge empty barn with an array of straw bales. After your first visit and the resulting rash, you remembered to bring a thick blanket to sit on the next time. There was a sign on the wall that pointed to the Gents, but it just led to a field. The ladies had a caravan parked outside with just one tiny loo. You would sit on the upholstered benches in the caravan until it was your turn to take a pee. Meanwhile, a flask and a lot of gossip was passed around.

We soon knew all the dances. Hanna, with baby Nicholas on her hip, would be whirled around the room by Quentin, who cleaned up remarkably well, and I would dance with Mrs. Ballantyne, then we would get mixed up in the mayhem which only fell apart when the crooners got hold of the microphone at about midnight.

You might think that a tee-total ceilidh in the little church hall in Cliesh would be a bit of an anticlimax after the well-lubricated affair in Kinnesswood, but you would be wrong. Actually, I'm not convinced that there was no alcohol; a lot of people kept leaving the room to get a breath of fresh air in the pitch black outside and came back with rosier cheeks than before. Events like these were the glue that held the community together and we felt so lucky to be included.

Big equipment by Gordon's house.

Quentin grew crops in the field between Gordon's house and ours and, come October, we would be treated to the sound of a couple of thousand geese alighting outside our bedroom window to feed on the stubbles. Sometimes he would put Aberdeen Angus beef cattle into the field but the fencing was really poor and I often had to botch up a tangle of wire in the pouring rain when the cattle got out. It was worse down on the foreshore because the boundaries ended in the loch and the cattle would wade around the end of the fences if the water level dropped. We used to wade out up to our armpits in the loch carrying a bar stool, a roll of barbed wire, length of steel pole and a sledge hammer.  I had to stand on stool and reach up to the top of the post to bang it in. Sometimes we drove it in six feet, but it made no difference. The winter ice would carry the whole thing away as it broke up in spring.

Corn marigolds 

In our final year at the Vane, Quentin decided to retire. He had already sold his house and downsized to a modern, sunny house that had heating, and now he  decided to sell Benarty Farm. At one point Centre Parcs showed some interest, but eventually, he accepted an offer from the RSPB and we planned the way it more or less looks today. First though, we had to take two fields of oilseed rape to harvest and I didn't have a clue what to do with them. We must have been the only RSPB Reserve at the time with scarecrows and bangers in the fields. A neighbour harvested the crop with his combine and it was dried at another neighbours.

This interdependence with neighbouring farmers was another step forward for us and I was invited to speak to a farmer's gathering. I knew it would be a tricky one and I had about 80 slides ready in my projector but I didn't actually use any of them; I simply sat on the table and asked for questions. An hour later, I thought it had gone really quite well. They were good company and I was surprised how many of them I knew by this point.

The last crop of oilseed rape.

I got to sit up in the cab of the big combine harvester as one of our fields of rape was brought in and then popped home for lunch. On the table lay a brown envelope that contained the monthly RSPB wardens' newsletter, known at "The Bully". I loved reading what the other wardens wrote and it was like a letter from home. Various other bits and bobs fell out of the envelope and one was the yellow sheet that advertised upcoming vacancies with the Society. Usually, these were for seasonal wardens, cleaners and secretaries, but this one offered a posting to the Seychelles to assist BirdLife International there by training local staff. I asked Hanna if she fancied it and she said "Why not?"

Another episode of our lives was about to begin that would keep us away from Scotland for some years to come. It was a huge adventure, but that's a story for another time.