I read with much surprise and sadness your article about the farmers and residents of Winterslow. I don’t know any of the parties involved or the area. I only know what I read in the May 7 Journal.

The farmers, thinking they were being neighbourly, allowed the residents of Winterslow to walk through their woods and across their land. I would have thought that the residents should have been round to the farmers with a bunch of flowers and bottle of wine to thank them for their kindness for so many years. But what did they take?

A good kick in the teeth and much unpleasantness. I cannot understand why this WOOD group has chosen to behave like this.

Their action may well be far reaching. Any farmer or land owner reading the plight of the Winterslow farmers will now have to think long and hard before they allow anyone to use their land for a car park, a field for a car boot. Most farmers have been only too happy to allow these activities, and pleased to help, but will they now want start something that may end up like the Winterslow saga?

This is a very sad predicament for farmers to be in. It is even sadder for others as many good people across the land may now be deprived of these pleasures thanks to the action of WOOD.

No doubt when people were first allowed into the Winterslow woods and across the fields the type of persons the Sheppard family were dealing with were people they could trust, but as these people have moved on and have been replaced with those of less scruples the scene has changed. No doubt these incoming folk liked what they saw in Winterslow, moved in, and then did their utmost to alter the very things that attracted them and others to the area. Trust and friendship and good common sense used to prevail in the villages but now there are very few “good village people” left as the young locals are not able to buy the tarted up houses and very few houses they can afford are available. Many of these incomers may do their best to prevent any form of “affordable housing” as, after all, they wouldn’t like people like that (whatever that is) living in their village! People from elsewhere who don’t understand country ways now reside in the one time farm and small cottages and these newcomers have to make their mark in the community in order to gain a position in the society – after all they know their rights don’t they?

Good luck to the Sheppard family. I hope they may now be able to do what they wish with their own land and enjoy a little peace.

GEORGIE HELYER, Hanging Langford