That tree

From time to time I jokingly wondered what they would call the place if there was no tree there. It looks like I am going to find out. Unfortunately it is no joke anymore.

When I heard the news that the famous sycamore had been cut down in Sycamore Gap I was stunned. But why? To be honest it has never played a huge part in my life. Yes, I have walked past it a few times and driven near it many more yet there is a photograph of it hanging up in our hall, a memento of some work I did with the photographer and I have a few postcards of it ready to send to my Postcrossing buddies. As it happens, I wrote about how the tree had been felled in my last postcard.

Somehow the tree and its position within Hadrian’s Wall had come to represent the remote beauty of Northumberland. It was a photographer’s dream whatever the weather and time of day. It was an icon, recognised around the world and had stood for at least 300 years but not now.

Part of me thinks that it’s only a tree. We cut down hundreds of thousands every day and so why is this one so different? How come it had become imbued with mystical powers? Its location was important yet I think its solitary position is what leant it its mystery. It stood out against an open and isolated background, reminding us somehow at the same time of our own loneliness and frailness, or is that just me?

The question I ask myself though is why? What made someone drag a chainsaw all the way up to carry out such a visceral act of vandalism? What was it about the tree that made them do it? Against who or what were they protesting? Two people have been arrested, a young man and an older man. Both have been bailed and it could be that we will not find out the reasons for a long time to come. It remains beyond comprehension.

I am left with the feeling that this act of wanton recklessness will come to symbolise today’s broken England.