Country diary: I feel safe walking in the countryside - half the population doesn't | Derek Niemann

Old Warden, Bedfordshire: As a man encountering a woman on a quiet lane, it is incumbent on me to take a few simple measures to convey a lack of threatAt Hangman's Spinney, half a mile from Deadman's Oak, I can't resist the imaginary gothic. The skeleton limbs of a dead tree have taken human form. Where in this wood is the gallows pole? A kite hangs overhead. What has it seen?Such entertaining thoughts of confected terrors dissipate into the stubble of open country. Two fields later, I am descending into a shady tunnel no wider than a tube carriage, walled in by thorn and bramble. Continue reading...