Nick Hayes is a lifelong trespasser and around his neck hangs a red cord with two silver objects attached. One is a pendant depicting Celtic Cernunnos, the horned-god of the pagan wild. The other is an ID tag from a tawny owl killed by a high-speed train on the line from Norwich to London.
The significance of the latter is obvious. The former symbol hints at the way that the act of trespassing is sometimes framed by landowners: as a rebellious, unruly threat. Yet the idea that it is “aggressive” to simply be present on land you don’t own is, according to Hayes, “a legal fiction” – and one that he and his Right-to-Roam movement co-founder, environmental campaigner Guy Shrubsole, are battling to put straight.
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