The next part was good. You’ll want to hear this.Lara took it all in – the scene by both gates, the placards saying ‘Save the Symonds’ and ‘Where’s your heart, Loxton?’, the farmers and country people making a human barricade across the tracks in and out of the crumbling farmhouse. And the woman in the doorway of the farmhouse, her face lined with wrinkles from a life of hard work outdoors, now brushing away tears from her eyes as a man stood next to her and rubbed her arm before he went off to join the protesters at the front gate. As he reached them a cheer went up.Lara looked so alive it was like a fire was burning inside her as she picked up one of the placards and held it high. ‘Who are the Symonds?’ she asked me.‘The farmers who live here. They rent the farm off the Loxton estate. Have done all their lives. Now Lord Loxton and his estate manager want to turn them out because they fell behind a couple of months with their rent while Mr Symonds was ill with pneumonia and couldn’t work.
