I stood on the headlands watching man and machine in the old quest for a straight furrow.

A froth of seagulls at the blade waiting for rich pickings from the chocolate-brown soil. A pale silver disc overheard suddenly mustered enough courage to charm away a curling mist.

“A straight furrow is the tribute that Agriculture pays to Art. There is virtue in a straight line, which calls for concentration and skill . Where there is skill there is art …”.

I looked him up when I got home, that Norfolk ploughing picture turning my day into a strange mixture of confession and celebration. John Stewart Collis was a scholar who became a farm labourer during the last war.

His experiences inspired the book The Worm Forgives The Plough, now widely regarded as a classic. But he was sadly neglected during the years he was learning to plough a straight furrow. He worked on farms in Sussex and Dorset , writing down what had happened at end of each day to give pages their authenticity and vividness.

“When the dusk fell I could go on no longer. I often caught the sharp whiff of smell coming from the upturned earth. Scent is a mighty marvel. What it is I do not know. But what this smell was the most intoxicating of all. It was – fertility. It was life itself coming across to me in pure sensation – the odour of eternal resurrection from the dead”.

I confess to sheer envy. I want to feel like that and find the power to say so next time I linger to watch  gulls and history following the plough.

I celebrate this November reunion with another master of rural literature, worthy of a seat at “fourses” time alongside the likes of Adrian Bell and Henry Williamson. Working writers who had to scrub mud from their hands before picking up the evening pen.

No great literary pretensions about The Memoirs of Josiah Sage , but he and other stalwarts of the agricultural workers’ union ploughed enough straight furrows with their sweat and sacrifice to earn our constant admiration.

Published in 1951, this little volume about big men was sent to me by Margaret Loveday of Harleston. Josiah, or “ Comrade Joe” as friends came to call him, was born in Kenninghall . He wrote these memoirs at 81 as one of very few people to remember days when the Rev. Joseph Arch led and organised the agricultural workers.

“Josiah was my father-in-law’s great uncle, A wiry old boy, he could still jump a six-foot ditch at the age of 80. He ended his day s in the Burston-Winfarthing area and his wife was secretary to George Edwards the MP” said Margaret.

Josiah’s father was a key figure in Arch’s union, which ceased to exist in 1896. Josiah was among those who engineered the rebirth of agricultural trade unionism 10 years later and was a delegate at the North Walsham conference which marked beginning of the NUAW.

I was most intrigued to discover another George Edwards in a gallery of outstanding characters featured by Josiah Sage. “It is not the George Edwards who became famous for his work in the present NUAW I want to write about here for by coincidence we had a George Edwards at Kenninghall in the labour movement long before and there was no family connection between them.

“He was a man of many parts, a noted bellringer and also a singer. He helped ring a peal lin the Knninghall church of six-and-half hours duration and  composed a long poem about that feat. He was a very quaint and genial man and was mostly called to chair our public meetings. He was one of the labourers called to London to give evidence before the Royal Commission hearing evidence upon the franchise before labourers obtained the vote”.

The Franchise Bill was passed and became law in 1884. Labourers exercised their vote for the first time in the following year’s General Election. Joseph Arch became their direct representative in the House of Commons when he won the North-West Norfolk seat by a majority of 640.

He was the first farmworker to go Parliament and kept ploughing straight furrows until he was 93. Someone wrote a poem in his honour describing him as a “ second Moses”:

“Surely ‘tis right us Englishmen and tillers of the land

That by our labour we should gain what nature does demand”.

I stand on the headlands watching man and nature drawing a timeless furrow or two. Gateway to winter is nudged open. Mists will turn to frosts. But we know logs and memories are as cheery as sun or as star.