The Wood and The Boy

 

Photo by Harry Shelton on Unsplash

As woodlands go, my time on this planet was short lived. My origins sprang from gravel extraction during the First World War. Not grand by modern 21^st century standards, mere scrapings by comparison, with no deep pits, just shallow hollows that left hillocks of sandy spoil and low spots that filled with water during winter rains. This was enough to sustain the growth of willow in the wetter areas and the botanists would come to describe me as a wet woodland with a patchwork mosaic of grassland, reed and bramble habitats in the drier peripheries of my domain.

A couple of deeper small ponds were dug and left with their gravelled tumuli standing sentry duty by their sides. The gravel seam was limited and soon the workings were abandoned for richer seams further north and, in time, these new quarries became deep pits of crystal clear water, the banks of which limited my expansion as a woodland, leaving me to dip my roots in their margins.

As the process of succession set in, the exposed gravel was colonised by grasses that sent out aerial roots to bind the sandy soil and, year on year, the die back vegetation nourished and enriched the soil allowing more sensitive mid successional plants to move in, until, as they did at Sleeping Beauty’s enchanted castle, the prickly brambles closed in as an impenetrable thicket to hide the abandoned machinery and rail tracks along which the loaded hoppers used to run. 

The years moved on and left undisturbed, my willows grew tall and strong, casting dark shadows. But here and there the sunlight still penetrated, and I watched the mosquitoes that spawned in my pools dance in their aerial ballet, spot lit in nature’s limelight.

Less than a kilometre to the north-east lay Waterbeach airfield, and sometimes during World War Two, my branches were clipped by stricken planes limping back to base with barely sufficient power to clear my canopy, like some weary beast of burden on its last legs after years of drudgery. Sadly not all of the planes made it back and roiling columns of smoke and the searing heat of burning aviation fuel signified another funeral pyre of the brave crews and their craft as they crashed and burned barely yards from home and safety.

By and large the nearby residents whose gardens backed on to my southern edges left me alone and I had only the company of the fauna that dwelled within my depths until one day my life changed when a young boy of 7 years moved into one of the adjacent houses.

It was at the end of July 1959 just as the schools broke up for the summer break. I don’t know where he came from, but I could see that he was alone as no one ever came to see him. There were no other children living in the street, the village was a kilometre to the west and most of the children didn’t venture far. As it was school holidays the opportunity for him to make new friends was limited.

Day after day the boy visited me, and the years unfurled. He was a constant companion and I used to watch for him as he made his way along the path between the brambles that he had cut with a bill hook. We never spoke but I felt that we communicated on another plane beyond corporeal senses. The wind in my branches conveyed my moods from the whisper of a gentle breeze to the roaring howl of the gale and the boy listened to them all. I knew he felt my pain when my shallow roots were torn from the thin soil to leave gaping wounds that quickly filled with ground water and root plates were suspended at unnatural angles like giant tumbled toadstools, exposing my secret under world.

From my ravaged wounds the boy gathered the exposed fossils that had lain undisturbed in the graveyards of seas long since vanished as climates changed and tectonic plates moved to consume the playgrounds of prehistoric denizens of the deep. I could see the boy treated these secret treasures with reverence and wonder and I did not feel violated as he gently probed, sifting the sandy soil with the precision and care of a surgeon.

At first I watched the boy’s attempts at fire lighting with fear and trepidation, afraid that the hungry flames that consumed the delicate twigs and then the smaller branches and ultimately the logs, would  spread out of control, sweeping through my trees leaving me charred and exposed. But my fears were unfounded. The boy always ensured that the fire pit was safely contained and when he left me the glowing embers were always extinguished by him stamping or peeing on the stubborn ones which elicited hissing clouds of ammonia scented stream.

On occasions he would sit in one of my grassy clearings, cooking bacon and eggs and sipping tea boiled from an old battered kettle whilst his shadow leaped and danced on the canvas of my illuminated branches. At these times he would watch the sun set and gaze upon the stars and it was then that I would lose him for a while as his thoughts seemed to  project way beyond the limits of my trees, lost in some deeper reverie. But eventually he would return with a shake of his tousled curls and a glance about him as if checking I was still safe. On winter nights he would stare in pleased surprise at the circle of hoar frost that had descended in a ring around the campfire providing a dark sphere of protective warmth around him.

Over the twelve years that I knew him the boy grew to manhood, but he was never far from me and we had many experiences together. I watched as he built dens from my branches torn from me in high winds and sometimes cut from the green, but he would always do this with respect taking no more than I was willing to give. He even took whole standing trees chopping them by hand with an axe but leaving a pollarded stump to regrow and prolong their life. Nothing was destroyed in wanton waste. All of the tree was chopped and sawn for logs to heat the boy’s house in winter as there was no central heating in those days. Smaller branches were used for bean poles and kindling.

The boy’s affinity for nature was self-evident from the outset. He soon discovered the foxes earth where the cubs played in the open grassy clearing on balmy May evenings. On spring mornings, he watched in pleasure as the aerodynamically challenged bumble bees warmed by the vernal sunshine bounced from blossom to blossom on the fluffy pussy willow catkins. Some of the sprigs he harvested were for Easter decorations in his local church though he rarely attended. He also collected and sold hanging basket linings from some of the moss that grew in abundance in my wetter places. Gathered with gentle consummate care he always left enough for regrowth because long before sustainability became oft quoted but seldom honoured word he intuitively understood how to work with and for nature.

He knew where every bird’s nest was located from the flimsy twigs that barely supported the pigeons’ nests (and sadly sometimes didn’t)  to the secretive robin’s and jenny wren’s and on the lake margins the moorhens, coots and great crested grebes, the latter, like the pigeons seemingly living more in hope than intent that their flimsy rafts would survive the brooding period intact.

The course of life rarely runs smooth and from time to time I would sense the boy’s sadness such as his shock at finding the cubs strung up at my margin. Their beautiful russet fur covered bodies hanging down headfirst as a trophy for the hunters who resented their mother’s forays to their chicken runs. I also witnessed the homage the boy paid to his pet rabbit which was buried close to where the foxes had been strung. The black and white Dutch rabbit “Patch” was obviously devoted to the boy as he would follow him everywhere and come to him when he whistled. He would roam wild and free and often consorted with the wild rabbits that frequented my depths. Sadly, this was his downfall as he contracted myxomatosis and had to be humanely dispatched by the boy’s father.

This tragedy obviously affected the boy deeply and he buried his pet with great care and reverence and each night at dusk would come to the graveside and stand in sad contemplation. I know not what thoughts came to him, but the sense of pain and loss was palpable even to me.

Nothing lasts, and even the stars cannot shine forever.  My time on this earth was much less than the ancient primeval forests of yesteryear.  At 19 the boy left my haven for the wider world, and soon after, his father’s lease on my plot was terminated and I was sold to a farmer who had other ideas than retaining a mosquito ridden wet woodland that yielded little but a stable source of firewood and a wild playground for a boy that no longer came.

My trees were cut down and burnt and the humps and hollows were bulldozed and in-filled with imported soil, seeded with monoculture rye grass to fatten beef and I was no more of this physical world. Perhaps my seed still lives on in self sets around the gravel pits now turned to fishing lakes. But my spirit lives on, imbued within the heart of the boy who grew to a man within the shelter of  my trees, who lay within my secret grassy clearings watching the clouds, who sweated whilst cutting my trees given freely, who learnt the ways of nature and the need to care for the delicate lifeforce that lies within each and every living thing. I know he still feels pain sprung from the knowledge that our living planet is existing on borrowed time if we don’t wake up and heed the call of the wild.      

 Steve Parnwell