Tim's Tales: Our trees are precious

These words were penned 200 year ago by the poet William Blake. He had the eye and heart of a poet, but when I first read these words many years ago, I immediately understood what he meant by the tears of joy.

My love of trees goes all the way back to my early childhood. I’d climb them and play under them like most children do. But as I grew up into a teenager, my love of trees began to deepen. I couldn’t quite explain it at the time, and of course I couldn’t talk to friends about it, or indeed anyone. I knew that if I’d tried to express the way I felt in words then it would make me seem weird or odd. I feared being laughed at or ridiculed. I didn’t know anyone else who had the same feelings and, like most adolescents, I just wanted to fit in.

But it was like a spiritual awakening which gave me a connection not just to trees but to nature in general. This relationship with nature got me through some pretty rough times after we had to move out of Prestonpans following the death of my father. It meant a new high school and new area to live, and it took me a while to make friends. My first companions became the trees I’d pass as I walked to school. I got to know them and, yes, love them, and most are still there.

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It was my interest in history which eventually led me to understand that my spiritual connection to nature, and trees in particular, wasn’t really so odd or unusual. I discovered it had been an important belief of early Celtic people, and indeed of many people throughout the world we now call indigenous. The early Celts, for example, revered oak trees in particular.

Some call this relationship with nature animism, although this is a relatively modern word to describe a very long-held belief that there is a sacredness in the landscape and nature, and that humans can have a spiritual relationship with the natural word. This relationship forges a respect and a love for the landscape and the nature in it, often expressed in stories and mythologies. It doesn’t mean that nature is left untouched by human hands, but what is taken or changed is done so with an understanding that humans are part of nature and need it to survive. In modern terminology, it was sustainable, with the protection of nature at its heart.

Sadly, this idea was rejected by new belief systems which saw nature as something to merely dominate, exploit or make profit from. This turned the land into commodity, it made a forest valuable only as timber, teeming wildlife became game to slaughter, the beauty of an unspoilt beach was a development opportunity; it redefined environmental destruction as human progress.

Ross Largue captured this image of trees having come down during Storm Arwen

Of course, the rise of environmental movements has tempered the destruction in recent decades, but it’s not enough. We have lost so much; so much that we don’t even realise how much we have lost, we are one of the most nature-depleted countries on earth. We live in a land where wild nature has largely vanished from our everyday experience. A good example of this is the way new housing developments are built.

All around the area of East Lothian where I live, there is new housing; literally thousands of houses. People need homes, I understand that. But people don’t just live in their house, they live in their local area too. I believe they need an environment that feeds their soul, not just maximises the profits of developers. Housing developers are ignoring, or, at best, paying minimal lip service to, the importance of incorporating and protecting nature, woodland and natural landscape.

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Yet connecting to nature is an integral part of people’s wellbeing and mental health; the lockdowns have shown that. I understand the absolute grief, rage and sense of despair that many indigenous people feel when their forests and sacred ancestral landscapes are destroyed. There is no way I can make a comparison to their loss and ours. But here’s the point: the fact we have so little left makes pockets of established woodland and nature even more precious, even if it’s not ancient. That’s why I’m saddened by things such as the destruction of a strip of woodland at Wallyford to make way for new housing.

I am no longer embarrassed or worried about being laughed at or ridiculed for my love of nature and of trees in particular – quite the opposite. And I know now that I’m not alone. I believe we can learn a lot from the struggles of indigenous people to protect and save their sacred landscapes. Our land is just as sacred, just as important to us, to our sense of place and belonging, and entwined with our stories and memories.

We need to find ways, not only to protect what little nature is left, but allow it to grow back. We need this not just for the good of the planet and species we have pushed towards extinction, but for ourselves.