A BLEAK dreich East Lothian morning, a snell wind blowing over turned fields, a muddy track to be negotiated, but still they came in their dozens for the nearest thing to a funeral that a farm gets.

Colstoun Mains Farm just south of Haddington has been much in the news in recent months, thanks to tenant farmer Andrew Stoddart’s decision to contest in public his removal by owners the Colstoun Trust. Yesterday, farmer Stoddart sold off just about everything that can be moved from the farm.

It has been portrayed as a greedy landowner versus poor tenant row, and not a few people have referred to the Clearances, yet the Trust are perfectly entitled to do what they have done under the law and remove Stoddart – morality might suggest otherwise, of course.

Both sides are in agreement about one thing – the laws passed by the Scottish Parliament under both Labour-Liberal Democrat control and the present SNP government are much to blame for what has happened.

The arguments have all been mostly aired and will continue, the sides have been taken, the blame has been apportioned, but in the end, there is a massive human cost to the case.

Stoddart has lost his farm and his home and his two workers are losing their homes and livelihoods, too, all of them suffering what the law so succinctly but so harshly calls “waygo”, which is the end of a lease and so much more besides.

For a farm is a living thing, a place in which farmers invest their hearts and their bodies and their money and while Stoddart has been paid some compensation for the huge amount of work and investment he put into Colstoun Mains over the years, nothing can make up for the loss of the farm he so clearly loves.

No matter whose side you are on, no one with an ounce of humanity in them could see the haunted face of 53-year-old Stoddart yesterday and not weep for the madness of it all.

As he stood by and watched, that fine auctioneer Logan Brown of Border Livestock Exchange did his best to sell the farming machinery and accoutrements that Stoddart has accumulated in more than 20 years of farming Colstoun Mains.

From tractors to buckets, from quad bikes to rotavators, from cultivators to a tool box and even a muck spreader – all 337 lots on the farm were put up for sale.

The farmer looked as if it were his children that were being sold, though thankfully Scotland has moved on from those days. Or have we?

For in a very real sense, Andrew Stoddart’s future went under the hammer yesterday, thanks in part to land ownership laws which date back to medieval times – “make that medi-evil” said Stoddart, wryly.

It was laws passed as recently as 2003 and 2014 which really screwed up his life.

The Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 2003 was supposed to make life more secure for tenant farmers. However, landowners claimed their human rights to own property were being breached by the law and in 2013, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom decided that the 2003 law was an ass.

The judges in London ordered the Scottish Government to fix the deficiencies in the Act which led to a “remedial order” in 2014. A consequence of that “remediation” was that eight tenant farmers in limited partnerships across Scotland face eviction. Stoddart is the first to go, after a long and expensive legal battle, and with little help from Holyrood which is currently tying itself in knots over Land Reform.

As Angus McCall, director of the Scottish Tenant Farmers Association put it: “Rather than seeking to fulfil commitments made by government to parliament and the industry, government lawyers are abdicating all responsibility and liability and refusing point blank to consider any compensation package for the affected tenants.”

In their longest statement on the case, the Colstoun Trust pointed out that Stoddart’s lease was originally due to expire in 2010 and they blame the defective law for the matter dragging on.

They stated: “The disappointment and frustration that Mr Stoddart is now experiencing is not due to the actions of the Colstoun Trust but because of an unprecedented legislative failure which has affected many tenants and landlords.”

That’s as maybe, but Andrew Stoddart is paying a price beyond calculation. It’s his soul as well as his wallet that is suffering. He is not alone, and maybe out of all this farrago of confusion will come sensible laws on land ownership and secure tenancies.

David Shaw certainly hopes so. He came from Sorn in Ayrshire yesterday morning to support Stoddart.

Now 66, Shaw is in the same boat as Stoddart, facing eviction from his farm, though he and his son Charles have their own farm next door and he won’t be homeless.

Shaw made an impassioned plea to the Scottish Parliament to act now: “They really need to do something to protect tenant farmers because there are a lot of estates that just treat them like dirt.

“We have no rights whatsoever, and what’s worse is that farms are all going back the way these days – it’s not the tenants’ fault.

“The milk industry, for example, has slashed prices so the tenant farmers who have no collateral are facing closure by the banks.

“It is time for the government to step up to the plate and help those in our situation, paying us compensation so that we can move on to something different instead of coming out of tenancies with nothing.”

Ashley Thom, 55, a long-term friend of Stoddart, is a former university lecturer who has his own 450-acre farm near Lockerbie and works it in tandem with a similar-sized farm of which he is the tenant. He does not expect the owner to renew his lease next year as he can make more money on the open market.

He railed about the Land Court which is supposed to rule on disputes between tenants and owners: “It is so expensive to go to the Land Court that it is of no use to tenants. There is only ever going to be one loser, and that’s the person who runs out of money first – and that’s nearly always the tenant.”

He added: “Andrew has a great deal of sympathy and support in the farming community, not least because of all the money he spent on lawyers and professional fees. He would have been better walking away at first, but he decided to fight. He is admired for that.”

Andrew Stoddart does not know what he will do now: “I haven’t had time to think about that. I am out of house, a job, everything, and so are my two workers – it’s not fair, not even on the scale of fairness.”

Pointing to expansive farm buildings, he said: “I built all that. This was a field when I came here. I poured everything I had into that.”

Asked about his feelings as he watched the sale of his goods and chattels, Stoddart simply said: “I don’t want to go there.”

It’s a place where others will have to go in future, unless the Scottish Parliament tackles the issue.