I'VE just written a diary about how the soundscape of where we live has changed completely the place and flagged up how much sound pollution we have.

But then this morning something magical happened. It took a while for it to dawn on me, for me to realise why the place where I live felt so different. Walking across a field I have walked scores of times, maybe hundreds, between the Church Inn and the farms adjacent, I noticed a sound I have never heard before. What was it?

I walked slowly and quietly and it took a while to realise that is was the sound of a brook flowing down the side of the field. I have never heard this before, only when I have leant near it as I have crossed and even then it sounded very different to today. Now the running water could be heard from several hundred feet away! It was incredible. And the reason? No aeroplanes! No aeroplanes, hardly any cars and few trains. The soundscape now completely transformed! It was an amazing discovery and reminded me of why I used to often go to the Yorkshire Dales [which made me realise further that I have not been there in years and I must go!]. I used to go to the dales to find peace and quiet. And now that peace and quiet had come to me.

It reminded me of being at my French friend Odile's house by a river in the county of Charente Maritime, not far from La Rochelle. It's an ancient restored farm house and mill, big gravel courtyard, huge glass room kitchen, that house is beautiful, peaceful and it dawned on me that the main reason was the sound of the place! And now we have that here.

I always wondered what the world would be like if the clock was turned back to before the internal combustion and jet engine was invented. A time when relatively silent horses powered transport. Now the clock has turned back, it has happened, and it is revelatory. It sounds amazing, it sounds like there is some nature out there.

I was not aware that there is so much sound pollution where we live, I wondered if that could in fact be the cause of some sort of stress? Because it is actually truly deafening, it stops you hearing that brook and all those birds I can hear right now. The difference between what is normal and what it sounds like today is incredible.

John Matthews

John is a film director and a writer from Uppermill. His new book "Butcher Boy", a memoir of his time as an apprentice butcher working for his domineering dad, is released in time for Father’s Day – details and pre-orders via http://big-pic.co.uk/butcher-boy-book.html