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’s land that this path ran across; his growing notoriety (and growing mansion) meant that they had found their perfect poster boy. They invited campaigning journalist John Sweeney (he who lost it with the Scientologists on Panorama) to come and see for himself; he wrote up his experience in the Observer of climbing the fence and being told again and again to ‘fuck off’ by a security guard. It was good timing: the piece appeared on Sunday, 3 January 1999, just as thousands were strapping on their boots and heading out for a muddy New Year country walk. The story spread like wildfire, in the liberal and conservative press alike. The debate around the Countryside and Rights of Way Bill was going on in Parliament, and occupying much space in the media too. Landowners were being lined up by various countryside organisations to splutter indignantly about the iniquities of the planned legislation, but nothing they could come up with could compete with the ‘Evil Monster of Uckfield’ and his downtrodden ramblers. Hoogstraten was the best weapon the RA could have prayed for, and they deployed him with strategic precision. When Mohammed Raja was murdered in July 1999, and Hoogstraten’s collar felt in response, the RA, while doubtless mumbling all the right noises of sympathy, must have thought that all their Christmases had come at once.

Kate and I set out to walk Framfield 9. It’s about a mile long, disgorging on to the A22 after crossing through the grounds of a country hotel and equestrian centre. Ironically, four years after Kate had victoriously snipped through the barbed wire at the other end, the hotel blocked the path with a dung heap and a fenced-off car park, and the Ramblers were off again. Today, it’s a clear run through, if a little ambiguously waymarked in the hotel grounds. I have to say, though, it’s not the greatest of walks. Press reports back at the height of Hoogstratenmania made it sound like an Elysian paradise, a gentle canter through Merrie England, with skies unbounded and glorious views over the Downs. In truth, the path crosses a couple of scratty fields, a claustrophobic little wood, a slippy footbridge in a thicket of weeds and the truly uninspiring grounds of the hotel. The only thing that makes it even slightly interesting is the occasional view of Château Hoogstraten.

That’s not the point, I know. It’s the principle of the thing. Which is why the diversion, as proposed by Hoogstraten’s proxy company, and eagerly accepted by terrified county council officials, was never going to be acceptable to Kate and the thousands that cheered her on. ‘It’s not the proper route,’ she tells me firmly. ‘The proper route is the original route that generations of people have used. It should be a lovely straight walk from Framfield to . . . to wherever it was going, but you can see here that it wouldn’t have been.’ So does that mean that all footpath diversions should be so stoutly resisted? She thinks for a moment and is prepared to concede that the only diversions that might possibly be justified are those that re-route some footpaths out of farm yards. A little later, over a pint in a particularly nasty nearby pub, she elaborates on the point. ‘Paths are our history; they’re absolutely fascinating. They show where people used to walk and ride, and the great thing is that, in most cases, they are undisturbed, so that even if they don’t make much sense today, they’re there for a reason – which is why I don’t like paths being mucked about with, just for the benefit of some private person.’

Her passion is astonishing. Her bravado too, when you consider how Hoogstraten was inclined to treat his adversaries. She’s been doing this for three decades and more, and travels thousands of miles every year to support local campaigns, speak at meetings, lobby councils, gee up the troops, confront recalcitrant landowners and be the public face of an issue that’s both deeply complicated yet barely flickers across the radar of most people. I ask her if she thinks things have improved during her span. ‘It has changed,’ she replies.