Pine forest treeline on forearm

The Forestry men came up the tip on Tuesday with a lorry full of saplings, and by dinner time they had put in four hundred Scots pine along the top of the spoil heap, where nothing has grown since they tipped the first load in 1911. Mrs Pryce from number nine says they are hiding the scar from the Hartley road, but I think they are only giving the hill something to do. You would have laughed at the foreman, a thin lad in a green jacket who kept touching the ground as if it might bite.

Your mam came down to the back lane with a cake tin and wanted to know if I had heard from the Colliery Welfare about the compensation. I told her no, the same as last week, and she said the forms are written by men who have never been under a roof that could drop on them. I am sure she is right. The kettle is on the hob again and the coal man still owes us a ton, so I am burning the old newspaper, and your chair by the fire has got its own dust sheet.

Something else. Last night the wind came round from the west and brought the smell of the tip down into the street, that sweet burnt stone smell you said you could find in your sleep. I went out with the lamp and stood at the gate. Above the chimneys the new trees were black against a sky that had not yet decided whether to be night. Down by the wall the grey dust from the ginnel had settled on the cobbles, thick near the pit gate and thinning a little with every yard, until it was only a breath on the stone by our step.

I walked up the lane in the dark to see the plantation and put my hand on the first sapling, which came up to my shoulder. The bark was cold and wet, and under it there was nothing but green. Come home when the contract ends, love. I will leave the gate open and the lamp lit, and we can walk up together and see how far they have got by spring.

Yours always, Nell