In the Hide

Our estate was built on land claimed from fields – we were at the foot of those rolling Kilpatrick hills, but over the roof of the school you could see more green fields and woods. I felt grateful to be on the edge of all that countryside – there was a magnetic pull towards what I thought that wild was, or could be. ‘One day, I’m going to walk to those hills and woods,’ I’d think to myself.

Soon, i...