Chloe Hadjimatheou

Not just for the land itself, but for the orchard.

It took 30 years of work in the city.

In the book, Rainer describes Hay as an over-farm, desolate place.

It's a picture that former owners of the farm and neighbours, including Ruth, strongly dispute.

But Ruth was also taken aback by the portrayal of Bill as this city slicker who's disconnected from nature.

Ruth's right.

Rainer's description of him doesn't seem fair.

It's true he's made a lot of money in the city, but you wouldn't know it to look at him.

He walks around Hay Farm in old cardigans full of holes and well-worn slippers.

At first, Bill loved having Raina and Moth on his farm.

Ruth was just a few minutes' ride away on her horse.

The trails she took often led her past the farm, so she'd stop and say hi.

He certainly seemed up for the challenge of running Hay Farm, which used a traditional manual cider press.

Because you were concerned because of his illness that it might be impacting on his ability to press the cider.

Did they ever call on you and say, we're in trouble, we're in difficulty, we need your help?

Ruth did wonder if the strenuous work, combined with the very rural setting at the farm, might be having the same effect on moth as the hike did in the salt path.

Walking along the coastal path for months, we were told, reversed the symptoms of his terminal neurological condition, corticobasal degeneration, or CBD for short.

In Rainer's second book, The World's Silence, she wrote about how Moth attended university to study for a degree in horticulture.

But the sedentary lifestyle meant his symptoms returned, and this time they were even worse.

Moth was lying on the bed when I returned to the chapel.