I’VE ALWAYS had pets around. When I was a boy there were a variety of dogs over the years – a boxer, cocker spaniels, saluki, poodle, Alsatian, to name but a few.

Other animals that have graced Mortimer Farm in ensuing years include budgies, hamsters, goldfish and cats with the current resident being a white tabby called Scooter.

Having given a home to so many creatures, harming them is not an easy thing to begin to contemplate so when the Prince of my home country called for all grey squirrels to be exterminated I confess to having a few distinctive anti-Royalist thoughts.

Clearly this man has never had an orphaned baby grey squirrel, clinging to his knee and staring up at him with big eyes as I have.

Not long after moving into our Hazlemere home a grey squirrel decided to join us. It took up residence in the loft right over our bedroom and proceeded to make the nights a misery. Let me tell you that while humans sleep squirrels scratch and fidget around in an extremely noisy manner.

If at that point Prince Charles had called for a cull of grey squirrels I may have been inclined to agree. Eventually it became unbearable and we called in the man from the council. The disposal of the pest would be ‘humane’ we were told.

It wasn’t.

Some trap he’d set in the loft went off with an alarming bang at 5am one morning and then followed an hour of squeaks and thumps which finally subsided before pest man came back to remove the victim. And so, we thought, that was the end of our torment.

However unknown to everyone the squirrel had actually given birth to four babies, which finally dropped from a hole in the eaves one evening while a group of us were having a barbeque.

I netted them and took them to the small wood behind our house, but as I made to leave two ran back to me, scampered up my legs, clung to my knees and just stared. Don’t talk to me about guilt.

Since then Scooter – a sort of rescue cat – has joined us and the grey squirrels now keep their distance just yapping at her in their own peculiar way from the trees behind our garden.

Frankly the call by his Royal Highness to exterminate the three million greys in this country is pretty pointless. It smacks of nature nostalgia. The thing is this country’s natural world has changed radically since red squirrels ruled the roost – and a lot of that is down to human interference.

Only last week it was revealed where a secret colony of beavers had been established once again in this country – it’s up in Scotland where they never were in the first place!

Even as I write this, through my study window I can see four Red Kites – riding the thermals in majestic fashion – no doubt looking for a squirrel snack.

Culling greys will once again be man meddling with the balance of nature. Just let them be, as long as they don’t nest in my roof.