The Independent - London, December 8th, 1996
We can all identify the common oak when it reaches maturity. It is brash to the point of brutality: a massive beast without a straight line in it, all elbows and thumbs, pushing out its arms sideways as though each tree was determined to be a whole forest. This is the species that botanists have aptly termed Quercus robur, the oak of strength, and is popularly called the "English oak".
Two hundred years ago, when the oaks at the bottom of my garden were young, the British were alarmed by the shortage of oak trees, and with reason. Britain's navy, the nation's only defence against Napoleon, wa...
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