"One of the great satisfactions of my life," writes John Boorman, the eminence of the film world, "is to be able to climb an oak tree I met as an acorn, and to recline in its arms and watch the earth receding at 12 inches per year." A lovely image. And not a shred of exaggeration in it. A friend who has been planting oaks for something over 20 years (John Boorman has been at it for some 30) would bear this out. Some of his earliest plantings (the friend, that is) have gone to thirty feet. A lot, of course, depends on the quality of the seed, the soil and the situation; perhaps, also a measure of tender loving care. Some philosophers have been known to talk to their trees. Boorman tells us in an article in Crann's quarterly magazine Releafing Ireland that he came to his house in Wicklow because of the trees rather than the house itself. "There are great limes that leaf all the way down to the base of their trunks. When they are in flower, battalions of bees converge upon them and their combined buzzing becomes like the roar of a distant football crowd."
He has trees a-plenty. "Ash and birch and sally grow wild along the river. 250-year old oaks cling to the slopes near my entrance. Chestnut and redwoods, beech and sycamore enfold the house. A preposterous monkey puzzle dominates the view from the drawing room. It is so incongruous, it offended my eye for years, but now I have learned to love it in all its hostility and prickly pride. It is, after all, one of the oldest of all trees in evolutionary terms - refusing to change or adapt, it gives the finger to Darwin." Hugh Johnson in his International Book of Trees writes that half-a-dozen of them would together make a great garden sculpture "fairly ferocious-looking, I admit." Birches are a great favourite of John Boorman. Early in February a storm took down two, out of a group of five around the house. He loved the "oriental elegance" of them, even though they were humble native trees.
John Lawlor, writing about the man and his trees, notes that most of Boorman's films have featured woodland and forest in some strong, central way. Boorman, who has planted about 15,000 trees, admits that his favourite is the oak. "I have learned a bit about them, enough to know how little I know and how mysterious they are." A heart-warming article.
Daft lapse on Saturday, placing Nice at the western end of the French Mediterranean coast, instead of eastern. Apologies.