Forests of Imagination

A childhood of trees

The seasons seemed to be heightened in the woods, In the winter the pale sunlight penetrated the woods and the trunks of the Beech trees gleamed silver when wet. It was much quieter in the winter without the leaves dipping and rushing in the wind. But the strong winter gales blew moaning sounds through the bare branches, that made me shudder, and fear something unseen.

It was like the woods were laid bare in the winter, but in spring the rapid rush of growth could be seen in the space of a few days. I would take every opportunity to be in the woods, taking the dog out after school, walking the long way to school or back from school through part or the woods, and during the weekends.

The changing light as the leaves opened and the gradual darkening of the greens, softened the outlines and the ground under the trees, there were the few violets and primroses, cow parsley and nettles, especially at the edges of the woods. There were not many bluebells on the Cockshutt, but on the Ercall and under the Wrekin, there were carpets of bluebells under the trees, along with celandines and wild garlic and wood aconite.

I remember in the Autumn collecting sacks and wheelbarrows of leaf mould from the woods, for the small garden we had which was mostly clay soil. The musty sweet smell of damp leaves, twigs and beech mast. The hollows in the woods were full of leaves in the Autumn, sometimes feet thick. My friend and I and some times the dog would run down into the hollows falling onto the mattress of leaves. Scattering leaves everywhere, we would through them in the air and at each other, somewhere knowing this was the last exuberance before winter set in.

Any sign of human presence left in the woods disturbed me. I had a sense of the need for guardianship of the woods I think. I knew despite their strength there was something vulnerable about the trees, they could not run away from danger. The thought of their being cut down was too much to bear.

The first large oil painting I did, age about 10 or 11 years was one of Cherry trees. I saved paint from the painting by numbers sets that my Aunty used to buy me for presents, and used the cardboard from a box used for photographic prints my dad got, curtsey of the Shropshire Star, where he was working at the time.

These trees were in full blossom, all pink and white but underneath the trees were piles of rubbish! I remember carefully painting the labels of Heinz baked bean tins and Coke a Cola cans. When my parents saw the picture they didn’t like the rubbish at all. It ruined the picture they said. Exactly my point I remember saying, the dumped rubbish does spoil the woods and the sight of the beautiful cherry trees.

The first painting I ever sold was also around the same time, to my neighbours, the Fosters. It was a painting, in the same sourced oil paints, of a forest, all dark greens and trunks. They had it framed and hung it in their front room, I remember their insistence at giving me some money for the painting, which made me think there could be some value to my work. Unfortunately there wasn’t money in our house to by oil paints and board and it was some years till I could afford to buy materials myself.