Editor’s Note

WE CALL IT “The Talking Tree” in our family. Nobody else knows it by that name but to us the stately oak tree growing a few hundred metres away from our home is legend. If you drove by it you probably wouldn’t give it much more than a passing glance, but whoever walks along the footpath can’t dodge its friendly embrace. Gnarly limbs stretch out and over the fence from the garden where the tree set down its roots decades ago. They arch over the path and down to the grass, drawing you into a shadowy otherworld of dappled light between spring and autumn. When the leaves fall it boasts a scaffold of branches reaching into the sky. At the base is a well-worn bench.

When our boys were in junior school, my husband would walk them home the kilometre or so, with their schoolbags and musical instruments, sports gear and artworks. And the tree would signal they were nearly home, but not quite. So Dad and two little boys sat themselves down in a row on the bench gazing into the tree canopy a while.

And that’s where they talked, spilling out the triumphs or troubles of the day. What happened in class. What discoveries they had made and who had said what and when and why. Unremarkable stuff for the most part, but that was the precious point. It was space for chatter and sharing. And talking for pure pleasure.

Turn to page 74 for more stories of trees that have become legends to different people. You probably have a story of your own?