Yesterday was my first day back after five nights on the Welsh border glamping with my family. On our first full day, we went for a walk. I had planned a short route around the surrounding farmland, with only a small section where there was some conflicting intelligence as to whether or not we would be sticking to the public footpath.

We didn’t stick to the public footpath. By about 2km the one-year old in our party began to present an urgent need for us to find a picnic spot. Eventually, near the cattle-grid exit from a huge but densely populated sheep field, we found a sheltered spot, clear of poo. I unfurled the picnic blanket.

I’d hardly eaten half a turkey roll when a tractor pulled up. It was a fair size tractor pulling a good size trailer, which I think was a tank full of manure. I can’t do a Welsh accent, so I’ll just have to use my generic farmer voice.

“This is private land you know.”

I stood up to reply, I said

“Oh. Sorry!”

The tractor was still running and was about 20 feet away so this was like something out of Alan Partridge.

“It would have been nice to have been asked.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No it’s alright.”

“No we can pack up, if you want, we’ll go. We’ll go if you want!”

“No, you can stay.”

So then I thought that would be the end of it, but instead of pulling away, the farmer cut the engine and started rolling a cigarette. I had to spend the next 15 minutes in conversation with him when all I wanted to do was get some of the cocktail sausages before the kids had them all.

He asked me where we were from and I tried to explain where Ealing was but I don’t think he understood me. He observed that London was very big, and I agreed. I said that I’d grown up in Cambridgeshire, but that in fact I had been born in Pontypool. He was quite excited about that.

“Oh you’re a welshman!”

“Yes.”

“Well you can stay there as long as you like then!”

He told me how many sheep he could take to market in one trip, and I was very interested in that. He told me how this massive farm had been bequeathed to him unexpectedly. We covered Brexit, of course. He told me how his son had been a very promising professional jockey, and how last year he and his wife had had to fly immediately to Paris because the son had fallen in a race and broken his back. He’d fallen safely from his own horse, but the horse behind had fallen and landed on him. At age 23 his son was now using a wheelchair and couldn’t expect to walk ever again.

Now, I don’t need to point out that a father would obviously say that his own son was a very promising jockey so I think we should probably assume that he had only been an average jockey anyway. The good news is that the care from his jockey club has been very good, and that horse racing involves a lot of professional networking, dealing and inside information so he’s busy working in racing, and very happy.

Normally I struggle to see a sensible way to wrap up Kevin’s Corner. With this one, I can’t help thinking of a connection to the Summer Paralympics, which ends on Sunday. Maybe at least it’s been quite good timing for a newly disabled sportsperson to witness that competition. Maybe he’ll be inspired by it. I have to catch myself wanting to say, wow, those paralympians are amazing despite being disabled - catch myself because you can see in an individual story like the farmer’s son - who happened to fall off a horse - that maybe these are just extremely resilient, extremely fit athletes, building their strengths and addressing their weaknesses, extremely driven to win, like any other competitor. I don’t know the farmer’s son’s name but I’ll listen out for his story.