Extract from "Where The Fox Goes,"

      All he could do was press on.  He would get to the Nativity play.  Perhaps someone he knew would spot him walking and offer him a lift. In an unusually gritty voice, he started to sing one of his favourite hymns as he trudged back up the hill.
     "Who would true valour see
                 Let him come hither:
      One here will constant be,
                Come wind, come weather."
     The mist was closing in now and it  swirled around in the wind.  Sometimes he could see a fair distance, before it rolled in towards him again.
     Ahead of him, he heard a voice.  He was certain that he heard a voice.
He stopped singing, but the voice of a young woman carried on.
     "There's no discouragement
       Shall make him once relent
      His first avowed intent
                      To be a pilgrim."
     Alan caught sight of her, now.  His fellow chorister was wearing a red head scarf, a blue rain coat and gum boots and she was walking down the hill towards him.  She waved to him, a joyful, friendly wave and turned abruptly into the hedge and disappeared from sight.
     He could still hear her singing and he hurried up the hill, joining in.
     "Who so beset him round
            With dismal stories,"
   Where was she? There was a small gap in the hedge and the singing came from the other side.
     "Do but themselves confound:
           His strength the more is."
      Alan walked through the thick hedge and came out onto a wide expanse of grass leading into the mist from which he could still hear the singing, exultant and floating further away as the singer hurried on.
     He raised his voice to carry with hers.  He didn't care what he sounded like, he just wanted to join in.
      "No lion can him fright,
       He'll with a giant fight."
The words of the hymn rose through the mist, bravely,
     "But he will have the right
                       To be a pilgrim."
Alan knew where he was now.  He was walking on Beatrice's Way, a raised swathe of land, which ran directly across the wasteland to the almshouses and the road in which St. Mary's Hall stood. It was an old green lane used by the drovers, but he was amazed that it was still clear.
     The girl's voice, sweet and soft in the damp air led him forward in the right direction even when he couldn't see more than a few yards ahead.
He sang now, without fear and with a sense of inner peace that he hadn't known since Mary was alive.....

Later in the story,

     Alan made contact with his friends and feverish activity went on for several days.  Documents were found and copied, advice was taken, opinions sought until he knew the case was complete.
     They decided to hold a public meeting in the church hall and invited their M.P., the developers, the council planning committee members and the general public.
     On the night, Alan was surprised by how many people he knew had turned up.  There were numbers of grandparents whose battles he had fought when they were young, with their children and even grandchildren.  The local vet was there and a couple of architects he had approached, when he had needed to provide alternative schemes.
     The history society was well represented and to everyone's surprise, the owner of two of the empty factories was there.  The general public was considerable: people from throughout the town who had played in the wastelands as children, walkers' groups,  the chairman of the allotment holders' association. Teachers, who used the wastelands for educating the children about the environment, people who went there  from the town when they needed space to think,  bird watchers, bat watchers, the list was impressive.  The natural history society was there in force.
      People were standing at the back of the hall, because there were no more seats left.  Both sides spoke....
(copyright. J.R.Birch 2004)