DARREL BRISTOW-BOVEY: Storied trees, and the people who love them
Africa needs a Tree of the Year competition, like the one Europe has — what better way to celebrate the joyful interweaving of people and nature?
I feel that I have wasted my life by not knowing more and better trees. I’m always pleased to encounter a grand old tree who has lived longer than me and you and many of us put together, a splendid, silent, local survivor who has seen so many of the sunsets and dawns of this particular place and who has shed and spread over so many of the stories that have played out on this particular patch of this particular Earth. When I was very young there was an avocado tree in my yard and my father’s great pleasure was to lie in wait for neighbouring kids to come creeping in to steal avos. He would arrest them with a savage cry and speak very sternly and summon their fathers. The fathers would come over in varying states of composure, expecting all manner of trouble, but my dad would take them aside and in a conspiratorial voice explain that when he was growing up on the poor side of Pretoria he stole avocados too, so he knew that part of the pleasure is the danger and adventure and getting o...
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