Storms Dudley, Eunice and Franklin haven't been kind to trees. So many have come down. Especially those prominent ones with wide, wind-catching canopies, which are often major landmarks.
I was saddened to learn of one particular tree in the North Cornwall seaside town of Bude, which fell to Storm Eunice two days ago. It stood in one corner of a small park in the town centre, where roads meet. It was a big tree with spreading branches, and in summer it provided welcome shade to people sitting in the park. It will be sorely missed.
I first saw it in 1973, when I was twenty-one. I had persuaded Mum and Dad to forsake the beach near Padstow and drive us all up the coast to Bude for a change. I was never one for roasting myself all day on the sand. I was restless, and getting a sun-tan bored me. I wanted to get out and around. But I was yet to pass my driving test (though I soon would), and was tied to whatever Mum and Dad wanted to do. At least I was getting an entirely free Cornish holiday. I rather fancy I was doing the driving on this occasion, converting the trip into a pre-test practice drive. It's something I would have suggested. I loved driving back then, and have done throughout my life.
So here are Mum, Dad and and my young brother Wayne standing in that Bude park, next to that tree that has now fallen, in August 1973, while I took the shot. This was forty-nine years ago, and the tree - though well-established and getting mature - still hadn't put on much weight:
The tree appears in several of my pictures of Bude as the years roll by. Here it is ten years later, in February 1983, when I was on my honeymoon:
Even then it was becoming an iconic feature of Bude town centre. Here it is in June 2006:
By now the town council must have been making efforts to shape and contain its growth, so that high vehicles could get past. But it looks little diminished in these two shots from August 2011:
By September 2015 the tree was looking positively gigantic. Just look at its girth in the lower of these two shots.
By March 2018 it was far and away the most dominant feature of the town centre, dwarfing everything else in the vicinity:
In view of what has now happened to this impressive tree, I feel very fortunate to have taken these two shots in July 2021, only seven months before its death:
It just shows how photographing a town over a long period can eventually reveal a story, and provide a momento of something well-loved but now gone. Little did those people in the park realise what was in the wind only a few months ahead.
The tree's fall on the morning of 18th February, a victim of Storm Eunice, was recorded by a passer-by on his phone. The video soon went viral. Here are some still frames from the report in the North Devon News:
Presumably the man who videoed the fall heard the tree groaning, and this prompted him to get his phone trained on it just before the wind pushed it over. It seems to have mostly demolished the park it stood in. Well, I'll be in Bude in early April and can contemplate whatever remains. Maybe by then the park will have been tidied up, and a new tree planted.
I'm thinking that several readers will remember this tree and mourn its loss. Bude will never be quite the same.
