Seven swans and tree fellers

On 4 June 2020, I was feeling a touch emotional. The walk I’d planned on Monday with Kim had been cancelled because she had a terrible headache. Now I knew it was a lot more than a headache, she’d tested positive for COVID19 and was extremely unwell. Suddenly the virus felt far too close to home. Kim was one of the NHS heroes we’d all been clapping on Thursday evenings and she’d caught the virus from the asymptomatic parent of one of the children in her care. Kim is much younger than me. She’s fit and healthy, she’s a runner and she was at home in bed not in hospital but I was horribly worried about her.

Commando suggested I go for a walk. He said it would do me good. He was probably right but I didn’t feel much like walking even if the COVID restrictions were being slowly lifted and the children were back at school. Riverside Park would be empty now, he said. Like a fool, I believed him. The weather was a little cooler so I left it until after lunch, with the idea that any morning or midday rush would be over. As I walked down the slope into the park it did look quite quiet and the sight of the river did make me feel slightly better.

I’d just passed the jetty when I saw my first cygnets of the year. Something about the sight of the pen with five fluffy grey cygnets swimming in her wake and one balanced precariously on her back felt like a good omen. Seven swans had to be a sign of good luck, didn’t it? I stood for quite a long time watching the little family and wishing Kim had been there to see them too.

When I reached my favourite bench, close to the reed beds I stopped and sat for a while. I didn’t need to rest. I just wanted to think. Two Southampton NHS staff had already died of COVID19 that I knew of. Both had underlying health conditions but that seemed like scant consolation somehow.

Around the bend in the river the park was less empty. A small group of young men were playing football on the pitches and several other people were sitting about in small groups. I took the path behind the trees to avoid them, more because I couldn’t stand their cheerfulness than any fear of catching COVID from them. If I hadn’t taken this detour I might have missed the flowers on the blackberries.

My plan had been to follow the route I’d planned to do with Kim, walk to Mansbridge and then up Gater’s Hill and along Cutbush Lane. When I crossed the road the Mansbridge side of the park was teeming with people. I had to flatten myself against the trees to avoid a group of cyclists riding three abreast and the path ahead was full of people. There were even groups of people sitting around on the grass and the picnic benches eating and drinking. None of them appeared to be following the COVID rules and sticking to socially distanced groups of six. With tears in my eyes, I turned away from them all and walked across the grass towards River Walk. My tears were mostly frustration and despair. If people acted as if it was all over and stopped following the rules a lot more people like Kim were going to get sick.

It was then that I caught sight of a house I’d never noticed before on the corner of Woodmill Lane and Forest Hills Drive. It was the age of it and the little plaque on the wall that caught may attention. Most of the houses here are fairly modern and a plaque on a wall is always interesting. The plaque, said Keeper’s Cottage. Keeper of what, I wondered? The answer turned out to be secrets, because, so far, I haven’t been able to find out anything definite. My first thought was lock keeper but Woodmill was the lock and I’d have thought the lock keeper would live there. Old maps show that the house has been there since at least the turn of the twentieth century but it is marked as lodge. The only nearby places back then were Townhill Farm and Townhill House. Maybe it was the lodge for the latter or a gamekeepers cottage for the former? There were sluices on the corner opposite the cottage, could it have been a sluice keeper’s cottage? Whatever it was, my curiosity snapped me out of my melancholy.

Pondering on the origin of Keeper’s Cottage, I walked along River Walk. At this stage I had no plan but, when I came to the trail that skirts the edge of Marhill Copse, I decided to follow it. The copse is a remnant of the ancient woodland that once covered this whole area. It dips down steeply to the river and the bottom is boggy but the trail is on high ground and usually dry. It’s also usually quiet.

Feeling much better than I had earlier by the river, I set off along the trail. As I walked, I remembered reading about tree felling in the copse. There was some concern amongst local residents about this and, when I heard about it, my first instinct was to be against cutting down trees. At this point, all I really knew was that Southampton Airport had purchased the Copse in 2019. They wanted to cut down some trees that they said were causing problems for planes coming in to land but an injunction was taken out to stop them and protect the copse. This seemed a good thing to my mind.

Then I came to a rather confusing sign attached to a fenced off area that had appeared since I last walked this way. The sign, put up by the Airport, sounded quite reasonable on the face of it. It said the woodland had been neglected. I’d seen numerous fallen trees and branches on my walks there so this was true. Cutting down dead or dangerous trees and managing the woodland made sense. What didn’t make sense was putting a sign half way along the trail to tell people it was closed to the public. The trail wasn’t actually blocked off and, as I was around half way along it by now, I decided to keep going forward.

The fence covered quite a large area to one side of the trail, the side nearest the backs of the houses. There was no evidence of any trees being cut down, or anything wrong with the trees behind the fence as far as I could see. If they really were dangerous, either to walkers or homeowners, cutting them down was reasonable.

A little further on I discovered at least one tree had been cut down. Sawdust and slices of it were on both sides of the trail. I began to worry that the trail really might have been closed off somewhere ahead and I might have to turn back. Then I looked a little closer at the slices of tree and noticed that whoever cut them down had turned them into seats. If a tree really does have to be cut down, turning it into a seat at the edge of the trail seems like a nice idea. If I did have to turn around I might sit down for a rest before I headed back.

As it happened I reached the end of the trail without seeing any more felled trees, or any other signs, so there was no need to turn back. Before I left I stopped to look around at the beautiful woodland. While I do understand the need for places like this to be managed, especially woodland so close to houses, it would be a terrible shame if any more trees had to be cut down.

Back at home, when I tried to find out more about what was happening, I ended up more confused than ever. The Airport seemed to be saying they needed to cut down five dangerous trees that were a risk to neighbouring houses and the public. They also wanted to undertake tree management work to protect the aircraft that fly low over the river to land at Southampton Airport. The former seemed reasonable but I wasn’t sure about the latter as I couldn’t imagine any of the trees were tall enough to bother any of the planes.

The people objecting were talking about twenty or more trees being cut down and over two hundred being reduced in height, almost half of those by more than ten meters. There was a great deal of discrepancy between the two stories and I had no idea who to believe. My gut said, don’t trust the airport because money is involved but my head, having seen what they’d done with the seats, said, don’t be too hasty to judge.

In the end, there isn’t much I can do to change what happens. It would be devastating to lose this beautiful woodland but it would be equally devastating if someone was hurt by a falling tree, or worse still, a falling plane. This is one battle I think I will leave to the experts. At least it stopped me worrying about Kim for a little while though.