They do it at home too, only you don’t notice because there aren’t so many of them. There are rosehips in the hedges and red berries on the hawthorn bushes, a cold tang in the air and the fallen leaves to crunch through in the grass. In school one morning, a great wind blows up. We all go out and try and catch the leaves as they swirl down from the trees in the road. We gather them up and take them back to press in dictionaries and atlases. On Wednesday, we take them out and laminate them and turn them into mobiles to hang from the ceiling. Mrs Angus – who turns out to know a lot about trees – teaches us the Latin names, which we’d never have learnt in my old school. Oak – Quercus robur. Ash – Fraxinus excelsior. Hawthorn – Crataegus monogyna. I like to think that they’re the real name of the tree, the friendly name you’d use it if it ever happened to speak to you. Quercus Robur sounds funny and friendly. Fraxinus Excelsior is brave, like a knight. Crataegus Monogyna is a little frightening, a shrivelled up old witch-tree with long red fingers.
