Ecological writer Satish Kumar once wrote that ‘unless you know Nature, you cannot love her’. Likewise, if we wish to protect England’s green and pleasant land, it’s important to get to know why. People who drop fast food litter, pollute our seas with oil and hunt our precious wildlife, obviously were never taught all about why our land is so beautiful and precious.
Nottinghamshire is the most northerly of all the East Midland counties. The city of Nottingham is home to ‘Little John’ (a clock with a bell that’s Big Ben’s little brother!) Weighing over 10 tons, it can be heard over 7 miles away as it chimes the day in.
This county is home to Sherwood Forest, where Robin Hood and his merry men would hide, when not stealing from the rich to give to the poor (today it appears the other way around). Their main hiding place was near Major Oak, a tree that has survived fire, snowstorms and deforestation but still stands (albeit with scaffolding to hold his giant arms up!) for 800 to 1000 years. A happy story, compared to Johnson’s government allowing the felling of England’s second-oldest pear tree in Warwickshire, to make way for the HS2 project (which will kill 22,000 wildlife a year, based on comparisons with other high-speed trains abroad).
