Bare tree with lettered quote on ribs

The men came to take down the elm at the bottom of Gorse Lane on Tuesday, and I stood at the gate in my good coat to watch, because I wanted to see it with my own eyes. You'll remember how we called it the Mother of Monsters when we were small, how we swore its bare branches reached for you across the hedge on January nights. Dad made us walk past it with our eyes shut. I never once did.

The saw man, a quiet fellow called Pryce, climbed up with his rope and talked to the tree the way you'd talk to an old horse. When the crown came down he found the heartwood sound enough, but the roots had been working under the wall for forty years, and that was what had cracked the cellar steps. Nothing monstrous in it, only patience. He cut a round from the trunk and showed me the rings, pale at the middle and dark at the edge, and said you could count the winters if you had the stomach for it.

I asked him whether he'd ever found anything odd inside one, bones or buttons or such. He laughed and said the worst he'd turned up was a tin of Woodbines and a lady's glove. Then he handed me a twig, bare as a bone, and I've stood it in the teapot on the sill, where it looks very sensible indeed. Turned out it was only a tree, Tom. We were frightened of a tree.

So if you come up at Easter, leave the torch in the car. Come and see the stump, and sit on it if you like. It's a good height for a boy who has finally stopped being afraid of the dark.

Your loving aunt, Win