Crummock Water...

I became a trespasser by accident, not design. Feeling that walkers were uninvited guests on other people’s land, I used to play the game. I kept rigorously to rights of way, following the pecked lines on the Ordnance Survey map, and the tracks ‘on the ground’. And, mostly, I still do: not wanting to come up against an impassable obstacle, I aim for stiles rather than climbing over barbed-wire fences and dry stone walls. I don’t want to do any damage (though even the most anti-social walker is a mere beginner in doing mischief to the countryside, compared to the professional desecrators of our treasured landscapes. Oh, don’t get me started...).

What stirs me to action is the plethora of signs, particularly around the Lake District, telling me where I can and cannot wander. Even in my more anarchic moments I have no intention of marching across anyone’s garden, scattering lawn chairs and bellowing “All property is theft” at the startled residents. But when I see an empty landscape, and a sign telling me to go away, I take exception.

I don’t question the ownership of these tracts of land. I know that wherever I wander, on this small and overcrowded island, I am on somebody else's property. But I don’t want the deeds to the land and I don’t want to build a house; I just want to be able to walk there, that’s all. And, in doing so, I don’t think I am asking too much.

‘No Access’ signs establish the idea, in the public imagination, that ownership of land can be used to deny every other person on the planet the view that the owner enjoys. That plot of land is, in essence, removed from the map. And that can’t be right. So these days I trespass regularly, routinely, whenever the spirit moves me, with a light heart and a clear conscience.

I have a pretty little speech prepared, on the subject of trespass, and how it’s a civil rather than a criminal offence. “Phone the police? Go ahead”, I will say, while striking a pose, suggesting that the threat of prosecution is a rather empty one. However, despite having the speech ready for my next encounter with an angry landowner, I’ve yet to deliver it. There’s never anyone around, you see. Landowners are generally elsewhere, making more money so they can buy more land, while most walkers take the ‘No Access’ signs at face value (“Can you do that?”, a fellow walker asked, incredulously, as I ignored another ‘Private’ sign and clambered inelegantly over a locked gate. “Watch me”, I replied). It means, ironically, that I mostly have these landscapes to myself.