THE OLD APPLE TREE

For more than 30 years it had stood there near the bottom of the garden, benignly spreading its leafy canopy over my family, as it had done over the family who had lived there before; maybe long before this house was built some countryman had planted a small orchard, for a sister tree still grows next door, in perfect alignment with our tree.

But I always think of it as my tree, a much-loved friend in my daily chores, providing shade in hot summers; always alive with squirrels, birds and a woodpecker tap-tapping on the old bark. And here a little girl with golden curls could have a tea-party in her Wendy house, near her paddling pool – a priceless country mansion for a London child.

The tree presided over many Birthday parties, barbeques and other family celebrations; was backstop for cricket matches and a goalpost for football games; small and friendly enough for children to climb into the crook of the trunk and pretend to ride horses there. It watched over babies asleep in prams, breathing their first fresh summer air, while their loving Grandad knelt to plant a second tree, which has yet to surpass the beauty of the first old friend.

It was still beautiful in Winter, with its perfect symmetry all a-twinkle with diamond white frost; and as snow fell, it became part of a Winter wonderland, a perfect backdrop complementing the rich green holly and cheeky robin redbreasts as they perched atop the snowmen built by the children near the dark trunk of the tree.

In Spring, once again it wore a snowy cloak; this time a canopy of fragrant blossom, dense and pure. Every year I looked forward to this time, when I could each day feast my eyes on a living masterpiece painted for me alone to enjoy from my kitchen window; or I would wander out and gaze upwards with wonder into the delicate tracery above, as if it were heaven I had sought and found. And as the days passed, and the gentle breezes blew the now pink-tinged petals softly to the ground, I would stand entranced, as if a bride once more, surrounded by swirls of dainty confetti.

But even as the tree shed its precious treasure, and the petals whirled and swirled, its bright new leaf buds were bursting anew; soon the canopy was no longer white, but proudly displaying its fresh green summer foliage.

The children would watch the fruit as it grew; first small beads, then deep green ping-pong balls, until the apples were big and ripe. No-one knew what kind they were, but in the early years of our stewardship of that tree, the smell of Sunday was the smell of apples cooking in kitchens up and down the street – pies, purees, crumbles – my apples, not very sweet, but juicy and so very appley! And there were always plenty left in the branches for the birds to feast on.

As the years passed, many words of sorrow and anger, of love and hope were exchanged beneath its watchful embrace at the end of the garden; it was a frequent background for joyful photographs, and the ideal place to put the garden bench which was a gift for our 25th Wedding Anniversary.

Sadly, like us, the tree grew old. The rich greenery became dark and a little wizened, and not just leaves, but twigs, then small branches, began to fall. We tried to prune it as best we could, and even in its very last days, devoid of most of its most magnificent boughs, it gave us the gift of a few last, perfect blossoms.

And so the sad decision was taken to fell the tree. We had 5 grandchildren by then, with two more lads expected later on that year, and the prospect of any one of them being injured by a falling branch was unthinkable.

Children and grandchildren gathered in the garden one late May day, and we all said our sad farewells to this beautiful force of nature which had adorned the garden for as long as any of them could remember. We watched as the boys took off the branches one by one, each one releasing a faint aroma of apple. When at last there was just the stump left, we discovered that the poor tree had been so weakened that it took no effort at all to push it over and reveal the root.

It was a sad party that day, but as I looked at the swelling figures of my daughter and daughter-in-law, a warm breeze rustled the leaves of the small apple tree which had been planted by my now 90 year-old father many years ago. Then I saw that there were many more new apple buds than there had ever been before, and the tree seemed to have grown taller and spread its branches to try to fill the space left by its erstwhile companion.

Our two new grandsons duly arrived later that year, and before they were 2 years old, both my father and my father-in-law had passed away; but we were glad that they had both seen their new little great-grandsons flourishing like the green shoots of the plants growing fresh and strong where once had reigned the beloved old apple tree.