You see, there was this tree. An ash tree, to be precise, and its crown was huge, spreading, and full of dead wood and brittle limbs which broke off in the wind and fell on our roof, our cars and our bins … and I was afraid that one day one might fall on me, OH or one of the dogs as we walked out. And the roots were so extensive that they were beginning to push up the tarmac on our forecourt (it would be a front garden except we tarmacked it) and were almost certainly eating into the foundations.

So something over five years ago, OH contacted the farmer who owned the field it was growing in and asked him nicely if he would attend to it, and he chose not to reply. Over those intervening five years, letters have gone back and forth between OH, the farmer and our neighbour, Mr P, who actually owns a driveway running between us and that tree, and a dispute began. The farmer stated that it was not his tree. Mr P stated that it was not his tree, and we knew damn well it most definitely was not our tree, but since it was damaging our property we wanted someone to do something about it. And no-one did.

From where we were standing, it looked like the farmer’s tree, since it was growing in his hedge. Mr P pointed out to the farmer that if it was his tree, then it was also his hedge and did the farmer really want to deed him three feet of land? The farmer did not, and finally admitted it probably was his tree .. but he still did nothing about it.

Getting no joy from direct communication, we contacted his agent. His agent was very helpful, and just a few weeks ago contacted a tree surgeon and arranged for the work to be done. And so it was that yesterday, two very nice young men turned up with a truck, a chipper, and a lot of equipment which looked as if it might make a bondage fan dribble, and one of them shimmied up the tree to pollard it.

I have to say, it was fascinating to watch. The surgeon himself, a young guy who looked hardly big enough to lift a tree-pruning manual, moved among the branches like an acrobat, manipulating huge branches in one hand and nonchalently letting his chain-saw dangle from his belt, while his accomplice apprentice stood below maintaining the rope that stood between him and a seventy-foot drop and chipping the branches dropped down to him.

The work took them most of the day, because it was a big tree, but now the crown is no longer extensive, full of dead wood, or likely to brain someone. The roots, of course, are still there, but will not be growing any bigger and may even shrink a little.

I don’t like pollarding trees, but I like chopping them down even less. At least this way the stout, ivy-clad trunk is left, along with the lower branches, so that the mini-habitat is still there for the birds, small animals and insects who live in it

And next autumn’s gales will hold slightly less dread.