Has the lure of the screen ended tree-climbing?

TREES have been featuring in the media of late, most specifically with Michael Palin narrating the three part Channel 5 series The Secret Life of Trees. Though mysteriously enough, he himself does not appear.

- Peter Mortimer

When tree people are being interviewed in this programme, it is not by Palin but someone else - several different people in fact. Palin is present in background narration voice only - which is not the norm for most high profile celebs, who tend to stay loyal to the Gore Vidal advice of appearing on television at every available opportunity.

Incidentally, few people know that I appeared in the country's very first breakfast television programme. It was a pilot for Tyne-Tees, way back (1980s?) and I was asked to review a film. I have no idea if anyone was watching, nor can I recall the film.

Back to trees; let me confess more than a passing interest in these arboreal wonders. In 2020 IRON Press published 'The IRON Book of Tree Poetry' which featured fifty tree poems by a whole host of leading contemporary poets. Subject matter included all the familiar species, plus some exotic ones, such as The Baobab (by Pauline Plummer) a tree that grows upside down.