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| School visit to Wandlebury |
A reasonably quiet group eventually followed me out into the trees. I had decided to take them round the outer perimeter in the hope that I would tire them out before the more mundane ancient history. I could not believe that some 70 children could be so well behaved and attentive: I had already pointed out squirrels, sundry birds and even a deer, when one boy – who had been ‘in my pocket’ the whole time, not missing a single word, and shushing any who interrupted – suddenly pointed to an orange glow beneath a shrub, ‘Mr Warden, what’s that?’ I stepped off the path, bent a branch to one side and held forth.
‘This is very interesting. What you are seeing here, is how the whole world keeps on regenerating itself – all things, including us, finally come to an end – and if it wasn’t for the likes of this fungus, breaking everything down into the original components, we would not be able to walk along this path today, for there would be hundreds of dead tree trunks piled one above the other, still here from thousands of years ago. As a result, this dog mess deposited last week, will be food for the surrounding plants when the next rain washes the remains into the ground. Meanwhile, these thousands of orange spores are already floating off to find more dog mess to colonise.’ The head teacher caught up with us and pushed through the throng, ‘What is so interesting?’ he enquired, ‘Dog shit sir,’ answered one helpful lad. I hastily moved on, the only loud noise was my own voice, and the occasional, ‘BE QUIET,’ from my ‘shadow’, as we progressed along the paths.
Finally back at the centre, I felt it was safe to venture into the, ‘Iron Age’ – that subject went so smoothly that I still had time to fill before heading back to the bus. I called out, ‘Who would like to see the biggest tree in the world?’ There was a chorus of, ‘ME! ME! ME!’ ‘And so would I,’ I
answered, ‘luckily, I do have one of its seedlings close by, so we will look at that instead.’
We walked the few yards to our 30 metre high Redwood; and whilst I arranged them in an ever larger circle around it – with even the teachers joining in – I explained its origins and why it had such a variety of names: finally satisfied with the diameter of their circle, I asked them to put their hands out, palms forward, ‘You are now all pressing your hands against the soft bark of the mother Redwood.’ There was a hubbub of Oohs and Aahs. ‘But I expect you would also like to know how high it is too? For this I need you to imagine that I have a chainsaw and some fast setting glue. First I must saw down another tree like this one, and glue it on top.’ Faces upturned. ‘And yet another on the top of that one. Still it’s not high enough! I will now cut half a tree, and glue that on the very top of the other three. We now have the mother tree standing in front of us, one hundred and seven metres high.’ All faces craned skywards, and a lone voice shrilled, ‘B***** Norah!’
There was only the murmur of voices, still trying to assimilate the news, that there were trees in the world that dwarfed the beeches they were walking under, as we trudged to the bus. Quite a few crowded round to thank me or shake my hand, before they climbed on board, whilst the teachers just stood numbly in the background. As the last child disappeared, the Head leapt forward and clasped my hand. ‘Mr Clark, I, I,’ the words caught in his throat, ‘That is, all the teachers and I, just cannot thank you enough. We never, ever, thought that our ragtag mob was capable of giving anyone such attention. Oh if only you could stay with us.’ ‘Or better still,’ interjected one of the others, ‘We could teach among these trees, instead of our dingy classrooms.’
Readings continue with Beekeeping as a beginner https://routeandbranch.blogspot.com/2020/06/beekeeping-as-beginner.html
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