The FALLEN GIANT...

Certain trees have been an important aspect of my life over the decades, not only as 'signposts' to memories of the locations in which they stood, but also reminders of the times in which I first became aware of them.  The first was actually a fallen tree on which I played at Fireball XL5 as a 4 or 5 year-old kid, and the next (two houses later) was the main one on which the neighbourhood kids had elected to hang a rope to provide a 'swing' for all those who enjoyed such a pastime.  (What boy didn't?!)

Then there was the one down the road from me in the area we flitted to halfway through 1972, which I passed on a daily basis to and from school for the next two-and-a-half years, as well as sundry other times.  It stood on the edge of a burn (narrow watercourse), which had two metal barred 'fences' at different angles to one another where two separate channels of the burn met, to prevent 'flotsam and jetsam' being carried into the tunnel that the water led in to (and out of) whenever it was in full and furious flow.

As a shortcut, I used to regularly walk over the three or four foot long, two or three-inch wide top of one of those fences to reach the other side, without pause or uncertainty, and I did so with such aplomb that I impressed even myself.  (I know what you're thinking - "He's easily impressed!")  I couldn't do it today because my sense of balance is completely shot, but when I returned to the area (and house) in 1987 after four years elsewhere and resumed using that same route to and from my home, I found that, after an initial hesitation, I could again routinely walk over that strip of metal with the same ease and assurance as previously.  So my balance was pretty much the same at 28 as it had been at 13.  No mean feat if I say so myself.  (And I do.)

There have been other trees that meant something to me as 'markers' in my life and maybe one day I'll write about them, but for this post, the one at the bottom of the street is the focus of my attention because, after nearly 52 years, it was blown down by the fierce gales that much of the country has been subjected to over the last several weeks.  It survived the second-last one from around three weeks or so ago, but, alas, it fell victim to the most recent one a week back.  I was in a friend's car and was dismayed to see it no longer standing tall and proud as we passed its fallen form, but I made a mental note to try and get some photos before council workmen come to dismember it and cart away the branches and trunk.

As you can see from the photos, I managed to capture its image before it disappears forever.  I do actually have quite a number of photographs I took of the tree in its heyday (I guess I must've known, deep-down, that it wouldn't be there forever), but they aren't to hand at the moment for me to show them here - when I find them, I'll add them to the post.  I wasn't really too surprised to see it had finally succumbed to the elements, because it actually stood in quite a tenuous spot with not a lot of earth and soil around two sides of it.  I think I was more surprised that it had survived as long as it did, as I always feared that council workmen would fell it as a potential hazard even if it managed to withstand the gale-force winds that assailed it every so often.

For quite a number of years now, whenever I passed it on my perambulations, I would reach up and touch the ends of its overhanging branches (which hung over the pavement on the street-side of the burn) in greeting and appreciation of its continued presence (in fact, I did so only a few weeks back), as it was like an old friend from my past as well as my present - though, sadly, no longer my future.  I was always relieved and gladdened to see it still stretching towards the heavens after a storm, but now I'll never be able to pass the spot again without a sense of loss and sadness at its absence.  Daft as it sounds, if trees can be aware of their surroundings, I wonder whether it will miss me (or anyone) as much as I'll miss it when it's finally removed.

So here's to another soon-to-be-vanished aspect of my past.  They become more frequent the older I get, but such is life, I guess.  Do any of you ever feel the same about once-familiar local 'landmarks' from your day-to-day life that are no longer around?  If you can relate to this post in any way, feel free to leave a comment - otherwise I'll suspect you're ignoring me because you think I'm as barmy as a big box of biting, battling badgers.