I was born and raised in North Yorkshire
My father was a farmer and he farmed an area
Known as No Ordinary Opera which was essentially a small moor
When I was nine years old we moved to Australia
And I remained there until I was thirty
When I was informed that the place of my birth
Was up for sale as the previous owner had moved away
I decided to visit Tell Cottage and No Ordinary Opera
With the view to purchasing the cottage and the farm
This I did at auction although I found that only the cottage was for sale
There was no mention of any adjacent farmland
On enquiry about No Ordinary Opera I was met with blank faces
I was told that no farmland of that name had ever existed
Even though I could remember it clearly as a child
The cottage although modernised was more or less the same
But the farmland had vanished completely and in its place
I found unremarkable grassland with no trace of any of our outbuildings
No Ordinary Opera had for all intent and purposes vanished into time
I still own Tell Cottage and rent it out as I live in Western Australia
But I have never come to terms with the disappearance of No Ordinary Opera
I sometimes doubt that it ever existed at all