Hello there,
It's Mandy here again.
Welcome back to Ted the Shed and thanks ever so much for joining me this evening.
I'm going to be reading chapter two which is called Do Not Cut Down This Tree.
Before I begin,
Please go right ahead and make yourself really comfortable.
That's great.
I'll begin.
Mid May 2010.
Do not cut down this tree.
Hello love,
Says Dad on the phone on random occasions.
I'm just setting off for the plot.
Dad's style of communication,
While very direct on some matters,
Is indirect on others.
The above declaration is his way of asking me to join him.
It's lovely to be asked,
Of course,
Even indirectly.
But it's so long since Dad last had a job that he forgets other people still have to work for a living.
Even with a half-baked job like freelance writing,
I can't always drop everything to join him.
I try turning the tables and inviting him,
But this doesn't work.
Perhaps it's because A.
He likes to be the inviter,
Not the invitee,
And B.
He has reached an age where one event per day is enough.
Oh no,
Love,
He'll say.
I'm thinking of going to Tesco's that day.
The upshot is that for the next two or even three weeks,
We don't manage to visit the plot at the same time.
This isn't my vision of a shared endeavour.
I work mainly on clearing and weeding the central area where the fruit bushes are.
I can't always tell what Dad has been doing,
And he tends not to let on,
Even when asked.
I remember his dislike of being questioned.
Then work takes me away for a few nights.
When I leave,
There are two trees on the allotment.
When I come back,
There are one and a half.
I shouldn't really be surprised.
In the gaps in every conversation since he got the plot,
And even when there haven't been gaps,
Dad has been saying,
That ash has got to come down,
Don't you think?
Mr.
M.
S.
Tells me the full story.
Dad,
After a brief consultation with the parish councillor in charge of allotments,
Felled the tree with a small handsaw,
Then cut it into short lengths,
All unaided.
Don't look at me like that,
Adds Mr.
M.
S.
I offered to help,
But he pretended he couldn't hear.
It's true that Dad's hearing aid,
Bending his ears forward with his cupped hands,
Doesn't always work.
I was worried he'd have one of his turns,
Mr.
M.
S.
Goes on.
His face got redder and redder.
Having witnessed Dad's phenomenal work ethic my entire life,
I can imagine this only too well.
When I fell single 30 years ago,
And had to move house,
He insisted on installing my new kitchen,
Not the distressed pine one I liked,
But the oak one he said was better wood,
In one weekend.
He worked,
Grim faced,
While Mum and I stood by anxiously,
Unable to help,
But unable to go and do anything else either.
Oh dear,
My mum said when they left,
And it was meant to be a nice weekend.
Now that Dad's in his late 80s,
There's an added stressor.
He has started saying things like,
This will probably kill me.
It makes for a nerve-wracking watch.
The intimation of frailty that would make some people take it easy,
Only serves to goad him into ever more extreme acts of DIY.
I feel sorry for Mr.
M.
S.
Never mind,
I say.
Now,
Why don't you pop to the kitchen and make me a nice cup of tea?
He trundles off,
Calmer already.
But there's more.
At the allotment a few days later,
I'm shocked to see a cardboard sign on the tree that is still standing.
Do not cut down this tree,
It says.
In smaller writing,
It says,
The other tree should not have been cut down either.
I'm both offended and mortified.
That exclamation mark,
Those capital letters.
But looking at it again,
The cut tree does look awful.
Dad has locked it off at chest height,
Making it look somehow more cut down than if he'd taken it off at the root.
It looks like an unpardonable allotment crime.
I stare at the notice some more.
Who has put it there?
The writing is neat.
And it has been dated,
Which speaks of officialdom.
But it's unsigned and the anonymity is unsettling.
Perhaps one of our allotment's neighbours has written it,
Or perhaps a group of them.
I walk home slowly,
The gardening idyll souring with every step.
I imagine a future of frosty looks,
Trashed cabbages,
A dead rabbit hung from the remaining tree,
Allotment vigilantes armed with hoes standing over us until we pack up our bargain B&Q fork and trowel set and go.
At home,
Mr.
MS is in his favourite armchair reading the paper.
Who wrote the notice,
I beg him?
Who,
Who,
Who?
I don't know,
He says,
Turning the pages.
What's for tea?
But it's all right.
The sign turns out to be from the council and the next morning Dad gets a letter saying so.
The letter is much more polite than the sign,
Focusing on the importance of conservation.
Dad writes an equally civil letter back explaining that he is very deaf and must have misheard the councillor when he said the trees should stay.
I am profoundly relieved.
I can go back to smiling and saying good morning to everyone at the allotments without fear of turned backs or dark mutterings,
And our plot looks better with just the one tree.
We have shade and we also have sun.
I consider moving the council sign to the stump of the cut down tree,
A joke I think Dad will appreciate,
But unexpectedly he vetoes it.
We don't want to get anyone's back up,
Do we?
He says.
You may be wondering what possessed an elderly man to leave the comfort,
Civilisation and creamy stonework of his birthplace in the Cotswolds and move to Yorkshire,
Land of millstone grit and gale-force winds.
The answer is my mother.
Dad,
Like many men of his generation,
Had an anything-for-an-easy-life philosophy.
A few months after I'd met Mr MS and moved him into my house to make an honest man out of him,
Mum decided she'd like to live near us and Dad,
Despite reservations,
Went along with it.
Mum and Dad were installed up here within the year in a flat with amazing views on the posh side of town.
I was a little worried.
I felt pressured to make my new relationship with Mr MS work and thought Mum and Dad had underestimated the loneliness of living with no friends nearby.
But on the plus side,
We could see each other easily and regularly without the pressure of having to stay in each other's houses for an entire weekend.
Dad,
Always the loner,
Didn't seem to need any friends.
But it was different for Mum.
Unfamiliar with the layout of their new flat,
She got up to go for a pee one night and came a cropper in the bathroom.
Following that,
With the flat a mile out of town and up a steep hill,
She couldn't get out and about independently.
She began to feel lonely and to look forward to a time when she'd be admitted to a care home and have people to talk to.
She bought a set of nylon nighters in anticipation.
They'll be easy to wash and dry when I whittle myself,
She said.
She lived for another two years,
Then was taken by a stroke.
Dad blamed the move north.
Old school in his thinking about children and parents,
He didn't understand my grief.
But you left home years ago,
He kept saying.
He also wouldn't tolerate my maternal clucking around him.
I don't need you to pop round here every five minutes.
I've got to sit here on my own until I get used to it.
As an only child,
I'd often felt outnumbered by my parents.
But now Mum was gone and it was Dad who was outnumbered by Mr.
M.
S.
And me.
We did our best not to gang up on him,
But sometimes he felt it anyway,
Accusing us of being against him.
He mentioned suicide.
I worried,
But my GP told me not to fret unless Dad's proposed methodology became detailed and included timings.
Please just get a gun and shoot me was apparently nothing to worry about.
Besides,
Elderly people had a dozen different ways to end their lives,
The GP added,
From leaving rumpled rugs at the top of stairs to climbing step ladders in ill-fitting slippers.
I didn't know how to take all this.
Was it supposed to comfort me?
The funny thing was that it did,
While at the same time scaring the hell out of me.
I wished,
Not for the first time,
That I had children of my own to focus on.
It would have helped Dad too,
I think.
Mr.
M.
S.
's children would have done it a pinch,
But he had none either.
At least we had dog M.
S.
Though,
Beloved by all.
Mr.
M.
S.
's and my fledgling union did its best to blossom in these circumstances.
Against a backdrop of grief,
Love,
Difficulty,
Misunderstanding,
And thwarted longing,
Stood the advent of the allotment.
No wonder Dad grabbed the opportunity,
With both hands.
Plus,
All the forks,
Spades,
Trowels,
And mysterious little pointy tools that he could muster.
No wonder I grabbed it too.
To be continued.
