To Argue with a Ghost: Nicola Chester, interviewed

In the first of our new, subscriber-exclusive interview features, Nicola Chester — author of September Book of the Month Ghosts of the Farm (Abre numa nova janela) — speaks to Tallulah Brennan about lapwings, spectres of woman-farmers past, and the advent of agricultural chemicals.

We like to begin with a couple of quick-fire questions.

What is your favourite farmland bird, and why?

Oh, lapwing! Such an arresting and joyful sight and sound, at any time of year — that wild-looping, erratic display flight; their call, that sounds so unlike a bird, stops me in my tracks every time. And I love seeing them in winter flocks, those broader-at-the-tip owlish wings in black-and-white flocks, that wink of magenta or petrol blue when the light catches them. They seem to me the most faithful farmland bird and we’ve utterly betrayed them. Older villagers say the sight and sound of them means spring, or cold weather coming in winter — but heartbreakingly, modern farming methods are hostile to them, and they are almost gone from the agricultural landscape in southern England.