wish. TV mast As chairman of the Dartmoor Preservation Association (DPA), Sayer was heavily involved in all that organisation's fights for what it saw as conservation issues. The first of these was against the proposed installation of a television transmitting mast on North Hessary Tor in the centre of the moor. When the Dartmoor Standing Committee voted in June 1952 to approve the application, Sayer complained that it had relied on the casting vote of the chairman in the absence of three members who would have voted against. Continued objection from Sayer and the DPA, and the CPRE, led to a public enquiry which took place in September 1953. Sir Patrick Duff, the National Parks Commission chairman, was well briefed by Sayer and at the enquiry his case was mainly based on the damage the mast would do to the scenery of the moor. Although congratulatory letters were passed between all the main objectors after the enquiry, the ministry granted the planning application in January 1954, though with some minor provisos to minimise the impact. Although Duff had failed to stop the installation of the mast, Sayer rewarded him for his efforts with a painting of North Hessary Tor saying it was "almost the last representation of that landscape that can be made while it is still unshadowed and unspoiled". The military From 1955 onwards Sayer kept up a correspondence about the military roads that lead across the northern moor from Okehampton Camp. In 1966 she and her husband deliberately interrupted live-firing exercises on Dartmoor's Royal Marines firing range to inspect and photograph any damage done to a prehistoric stone row. In February 1967 she disrupted a large-scale mock battle at Ringmoor Down that involved low-flying helicopters. She told the press that she did this to exercise her rights and to ensure that no damage was caused to ancient monuments, pointing out that the public could not be excluded from the area involved because it was not a firing area, and that sheep and ponies had been frightened away as the helicopters converged – "it could have been pony trekkers and hikers and might have resulted in a serious accident", she said. Reservoirs In the late 1960s and early 1970s she was involved, as DPA chairman, with the disputes over the proposed construction of two new reservoirs on Dartmoor. The largest, which was to supply Plymouth, was known as "Swincombe"