A Tree Called Brian
On a remote fell-side on the way to the wonderful place where I wild swim with my friends, there’s a solitary tree. A mountain ash. I call him Brian.
Amidst the laughter and banter in the Land-rover as we make our way down the valley, no-one notices him, but I do. I notice it all. You see, me and Brian have history.
No, I haven’t lost my anthropomorphic marbles, I’ve actually gained a bag full of affirming allegorical ones.
I’ve photographed him (with his express permission of course …) through all weathers and in all seasons and he’s thriving.
With the classic comb-over look given to him by the endless stream of south westerlies that come hammering up the valley he stands there bent but not broken by his environment. Stronger in fact.
Just doing his thing, quietly being himself, connecting gently with his landscape. Simply being.
There’s wonderful nobility in that.
I’m not sure how old he is, but using the tree hugging arm span test to gauge circumference, I think he’s probably about 50. Half a century of winters, half a century of summers.
And all that comes between.
There are more famous trees. The Major Oak in the UK, The General Sherman in the US for example.
There are certainly more photographed trees (the Sycamore Gap Tree on Hadrian’s Wall springs immediately to mind).
But Brian’s not a show off, not his style at all. I don’t imagine he loses sleep (do trees sleep…) comparing himself to other Mountain Ashes. He just gets on with being the best he can be in the environment he was born to inhabit. I think we can learn from that.
I think we can learn a lot from truly looking at the natural world around us and how nature is always trying to teach us lessons that we really need to know.
If you ever find Brian, give him a hug, I’m sure he’d appreciate it.
Then glance up to the ridge on the skyline where there’s another solitary ash in the far distance that Brian looks lovingly at every day… I have a name for her too.
But that’s another story …
GØ
