I’m viewing the Forest from Worrell Hill, having circumnavigating the forest, from village to village over the last 53 years (except for a 10 year exile abroad), before moving to my current home.

It’s a part of the Forest that I didn’t know until recently. In geography lessons at school in the far north east of England, maps showed this distant, mysterious part of the country as a black area, to represent coal mining, as deep coal mining continued until the last mine closed in 1965, some time after I had left school.

I came to my first home in the forest when I accidentally bought a house in St Briavels when I got carried away at a house auction. It was a reckless bid that no-one challenged, so after some frantic discussion with my bank manager, my bid was honoured, and I became a Forester.

The river here is the Wye and not the Severn. There’s a football ground within a few yards of my latest Forest home, and there’s no rugby here. There are many equally inconvenient roads from here to my commercial and banking arrangements in Lydney or Newnham. There is a conspiracy to cut off the northern forest from the south by interminable, badly signposted road works.

And I left the great south Forest without unravelling some important practical questions that I have never found an answer to. As a relatively recent immigrant to them I must ask: Travelling from Whitecroft to Yorkley, where does Whitecroft end and Pillowell begin? And further along the road, when does Pillowell end and Yorkley begin? Where does Cinderford become Ruspidge (and vice versa)?

What’s the best way to get from Cinderford to Lydney?

Why is the important English Civil War town, Coleford, site of an important English Civil War battle, well recorded and commemorated by the local populace, probably the only town in the country not to have a football, cricket or rugby club?

How is it that the charming, playful little forest lambs suddenly turn into ugly, stupid, scruffy, dirty sheep?

Why did Newnham cricket club suddenly collapse shortly after I joined the village many years ago? What does ‘Mork’ mean? How do you pronounce ‘Awre’? Why is the charming Yorkley Star Cricket Pavilion not used for cricket any more? Who killed the bear? When will the road closure at Whitecroft be fixed? What has happened to the Bream Rugby Club premises? As an old Bream Rugby player, it’s painful to see the deterioration of the clubhouse where we celebrated our rare victories and enjoyed great revelry over the Christmas holidays.

Sad stories, which I will remember as I watch the English Bicknor Football Club just over the road from us after my move to a new part of our many sided Forest.