06 - The Original Bramley Apple Tree: Can Britain's Most Famous Apple Tree Be Saved? | Dan Llywelyn Hall

The original Bramley apple tree is one of Britain's most important living landmarks.

Every Bramley apple grown around the world today can trace its origins back to this single tree in Southwell, Nottinghamshire. Yet despite its extraordinary history and cultural significance, its future has recently been at the centre of a passionate campaign.

In this episode, I sit down with artist and environmental campaigner Dan Llywelyn Hall, who became closely involved in the effort to protect the original Bramley apple tree and raise awareness of its importance.

We discuss the remarkable history of the tree, why it matters far beyond horticulture, the campaign to save it, and what its story tells us about how we protect the UK's most important heritage trees.

We also explore Tree Preservation Orders, conservation areas, public access to historic trees, and whether our current legal protections are enough to safeguard these irreplaceable living landmarks for future generations.

If you've ever wondered why some trees become part of our national identity, this is a conversation you won't want to miss.

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🎧 Huge thanks to Mike at Making Digital Real for producing and editing this episode to such a high standard.

Transcript

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So he'll just get the heat, he'll just get the full. Yeah, I'd answer it down here. Yeah, just check I've got the right sand then plump them. So that's my neti. Yeah, that's right. Okay. Let's see where it's gonna be able to go to see those. Oh, just make it a little bit. Yeah, it's okay. Right, that'd be a quite foist bar in the pretty pops of the loo. Though it is recorded. Yeah, whenever I quick look at them. Yeah, yeah, it's still recording. Yeah. So this is my first time doing it in post. All right. So yeah, we'll start. Yeah. Hi, Dan. Welcome to trees on the podcast. First podcast on a face to face basis, which is exciting. So do you want to tell everybody a little bit about you? Yes. Well, I'm an artist. My name's Dan through Ellen Hall. I have worked from numerous sort of heritage trees in the past. And as a result of that, so I was invited into campaigns to do the safeguarding trees such as a Sheffield Street trees, HS2. And then individual trees are the Darwin Oak in Shrewsbury. And then most recently, the Brown, the Apple. I don't think I realised that you've been involved in previous trick campaigns. Yeah, no, it's sort of something which you having had an interest in depicting trees. I was invited by the campaigner, Robert McBride, who works sort of nationally on these different sorts of campaigns. And I realised that, you know, could quickly become a sort of good means of communicating the kind of perils some of these situations in a different way. You know, I mean, you know, there's this this rage of the TV and all these things largely pinned around news stories. But I think when it's depicted in paintings, it's somehow as a bit more longevity, I think. Yeah, that's interesting. I wonder what so I've been approached recently to write a piece that's going to go in an art exhibition. That's going ahead next month. Yeah, I can't remember any details about that to share that with you. But that that's, that's interesting. Um, okay, so talking about the Bramley apple tree, then, which I would imagine that people are listening to this podcast will have seen in the news. Asking a couple of quick questions, and can you give our listeners a short version of the Bramley apple tree story? Yes, well, it was, um, it grew in a garden in Southwell, in Nottingham, Shire area. And it was it was propagated by a lady called Mary Ann Brailsford who lived in the cottage, or perhaps adjacent to it, there's quite a strange arrangement, because the tree is sort of in a garden, which is on an L shape. So it was a rigid part of another cottage, for which we can talk about later how it's now ended up. But any case, propagated by this, this is let us go grew from there. And it was discovered by a man called Henry Merriweather, who was a sort of fruit seller, propagator of fruit trees, discovered this particular Bramley apple itself that came off of that particular tree, and asked the man where had where he got this particular one from, and he pointed out the tree. And the rest is history, you know, he then realised that this particular tree itself was generating that the most apprised culinary apple, probably in the world, cooking apple. And Mark is it made it very famous around the world, you know, it's, and therein is the history, it's, you know, every tree which has grown now, the producing Grammy apples has come directly from this one as a cuttings, you know, as opposite can't be grown as pits. So that very particular strain of DNA provides us with the Grammy apple. So what makes this Grammy apple tree then this particular one different from other historical veteran trees? Well, I think it being a provider of food to start with quite interesting one, in the sense that, you know, during two world wars, and provided food fruits for generations, which were going through rationing, you know, so there's its product is celebrated by chefs around the world. So that in itself is a starting point. But as a heritage tree, I think it's interesting because it's considerably older than most apple trees would have lived. The only other one I'm aware of is Newton's apple tree, which is purportedly sort of 300 or something years old. Oh, from the gravity set. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. From gravity. Yeah. Yeah. Gravity fame. So it does show you that, you know, the tree is looked after and cultivated correctly. It can outlive its sort of anticipated lifespan. But this tree has got wonderful stories connected to it. So the social stories, the fact then that it's named after Bramley, by the way, because Bramley was the man who lived whose tree in which the garden, which the trees are originally in. You can go and sell this tree and the apple, but you must call it the Bramley. So that's why it's not called the Merryweather. What does it still produce fruit? It does still produce fruit. I was there several weeks ago and it's blossoming. It's got leaves. It's, you know, it's still germinating well. It's producing fruit. By all accounts, the gardener told me that the apples he picked last year from it delicious and still, you know, still very strong. From my research on it, it's almost in, it's in that unique league of trees that I suppose, I guess is in a class of its own. So I read that it was one of the Queen's 50 special trees of golden jubilee. And then as part of the 70 special trees for the platinum jubilee. So it really is in that unique category of trees. Absolutely. Yeah. Couldn't be sort of heralded more important. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of conversation about how or how we protect the UK's heritage trees and whether the legal protections in place at the moment can go far enough. I think we know the answers to that. Spoiler alert. No, they can't. And how is there a way to make the protection for those unique category of trees stronger? Well, there are so, I suppose there's so few of them in some senses that certainly they rarely sort of make the news and on the level that this tree has. But I think, you know, it requires those individual stories to project it into the public round sufficiently enough to, you know, to enter the debate, to enter the public to have a political debate, which is what it needs, what needs to happen. So when the Sycamore Gap happened, you know, in 2023, so the last couple of years, you know, that's been in the press. And I remember last year when it was around this time of year in the sentencing hearing on the Sycamore Gap. And I spoke to a lot of press, a lot of international press, and the American press always asked me the same question, which was, oh my God, why do you break some of trees so much? And it was such a straightforward question that I struggled. I stutter over the answer. So I thought, I know, I'm going to put this out to my network and say, why do we love trees so much? And the richness of the response I got back, I thought it'd be quite one dimensional. I thought it would be, I don't know, a carbon, quite a carbon answer or an environment answer. But it was so multifaceted. That really took me by surprise. And I guess that's one of the things, one of the reasons why stories like this and campaigns like this hit so hard. Yeah, I think they get so connected to the anecdotal, they develop, we develop close relationships with these trees over the years. They're part of the local geography and the local sort of vernacular, if you like. They enter into our imagination and they become part of our day-to-day lines. And I think we are lucky enough in this country, we've got a lot of them. But it does, I think, really does pull at the heartstrings. They're vulnerable things, aren't they? I mean, they can't defend themselves. They sort of occupy this strange existence in between progress and the past and how do we manage them? So there's a whole load of things that they're subject to. And we do tend to make a fuss about them, but I think all the better for it. I mean, I've just come back from France, where I did a residency at Glisten Tramper for an avenue of ash trees, all in peril. Here's one lady, managed to save the whole avenue from the chop. Of course, they've got die back in different stages, but her argument was, you know, the trees are still living. They're not falling down. They might be in the process of dying, but we have to celebrate the fact that this avenue and its history is there. And we manage with the manager. We can use these here to appeal. But the French, you know, wholesale cut down all the trees and have an ancient trees. Look at the size of France. Really? And you're taking consideration that you do not have any ancient trees or very, very few. When I spoke about the signal gap, I spoke to US, Canadian, Australian, and French press. That's interesting. It's interesting to see how we approach them in different ways. Like, as I said, the Americans were just curious, like, what is it about these trees that you guys like so much? Well, I'm an idea is that I don't have less. Remember, they don't have any, although they're very few. And I just don't think they answer into the story of us, social fabric. I think trees in private ownership being protected, I think is almost against is almost against their constitutional rights. So I think unless it's in a national park, it's almost like do what you want to the private owner. So talk about the campaign, then. How did the campaign begin? As you've alluded to, you said earlier that you were involved in quite a few campaigns. So how did the campaign begin for you? Well, I was approached by the great granddaughter, Celia Stephen, who now in her 80s, actually, she's a great advocate. She spent most of her life championing this tree, her great grandfather's finding, and felt the tree was a bit of a public awareness that it even existed. So I sort of came in and I did some paintings to start with. And we found the tree in quite a perilous state that Nottingham Trent University, who were the custodians, were just about to sell it. He had allowed this tree to just sort of be surrounded by this honey fungus. We walked into the garden, found it proliferating all around the place in a very unloved state, you know, the tree of that stature. It was surprising to find the university, which it regards itself as a leader in agriculture, not neglecting this tree. So Celia and I thought we would have did something about this. So we just made people aware. Star Wars, you know, we said this is unacceptable, but they do something. So it was a tree in the garden of a student accommodation house? That's right. It was, yeah, it was an student accommodation. So for the 10 years of their tenure, sort of there, just in the back garden, sort of incidental, really, it was never, it was only opened up once a year if, you know, once or twice a year. So it wasn't, it wasn't publicly accessible. Yeah. So this was just sat in the back garden, sort of unloved, really. And I felt quite lanchenia that it was quite a shameful situation. Could the students living in the house go into the garden? Oh, yeah. Like I've got, in my mind's eye now, I've got some shopping trolleys in the garden. Well, it was a bit that we found beer cans, as you'd expect the halls of residence to look like. There's about eight rooms or eight to 10 rooms in this particular building. And it was all, it was rubbish strewn across the field, across this garden. It wasn't a flower in there. It's kind of, you know, it just felt very sorry state. For us, he suggested a tree of that statue. You'd think, well, surely we can do better. Surely they should be doing better with it. So then we had to then embark on a bit of a kind of awareness campaign. And I think in a way that brought it into the form. So at what point then, by the time you got involved, were you aware that the Nottingham Trent University were planning to sell the property? No, by that point, it wasn't on the market. This was two years ago. So this was really, and I've got a feeling that noise surrounding our initial sort of exposure, if you like, and my depictions of things, probably prompted them to sort of get rid of it by my thing. Because you'll have to remember that 10 years ago, when they first took it on, there was footage of them and sort of saying that this tree is probably be fallen over dead within a year because of the honey fungus, which it has, but it's surviving and it's carrying on. Whatever state it's at, it's still alight. So with intervention, they could have done something, but no, they just left it there. And I think they were expecting the thing to fall over. They put some props. I'll give them that. They did keep the thing upright, but I mean, you know. Yeah, I mean, did you see in the news last week, the what's it called, that great oak? Yeah, but that died and that had been propped up as well. And there was some comment that actually the propping might have led to its demise. Because I think the sort of tree that that was, had it been left to sort of drop limbs and do various things, it might have been able to keep itself alive. Yeah, sure. I mean, who knows about these? I know, I know. Like hindsight. My argument in that case was that, you know, I heard a lot of, a lot of news reports saying, oh, it was due to the people, due to us going to visit it, it killed it. Well, I would, I would argue that without the intervention, that tree, you know, again, it's outlived its natural, generally predicted life of who knows what, what it would have helped or did it go. And I think they put concrete inside the tree. Yeah, it's a rutting to the inside. That kind of thing. So what's it, so you were involved in trying to purchase the property? So then roll on two years. So then they then decide that they're going to put on the market, sell the whole property with the tree in. We were alerted to this and it was all sort of hushed, hushedly done. It wasn't kind of, they didn't broadcast this too loudly, put it on them, put it on the market. And we thought, right, well, this could be an interesting junction. It could, we could find someone who would buy this and finally celebrate a tree, open it up to the public, give you its deserving sort of respect. Weighted is nothing quite transpired. I was, I went along to South Wales and meet Patrick Barkham, who's including it in one of his books, forthcoming books on ancient trees, showing the tree, talk about it. And then I heard all the grapevine that, oh, actually, this is by the estate agent told me, oh, well, they've actually sold tree itself to the neighbour, but the property is still available as in that they were breaking the sale down into the trees, a separate component of it. Oh, the garden. Yeah. And that would be subsumed into the neighbour's garden as their own private house. And that would be the end of it, you know, and that was happening. That was imminent. They said to me, this is due to complete next week. Oh, really? So it was as quicker. So we had to operate. So I thought, right, we have to do something now sort of thing. So quickly alerted CEO and we launched this campaign. And we, you know, within the space of time we had, we were getting momentum, we're getting plenty of news stories, coverage on it. And we were examining all different avenues. We wanted to create a heritage centre and keep site open. We had a local business who was going to take on the halls residents to make it a viable sort of future for it. But then, as in the process for campaign, we had about a week left to go with bits of clothes. Um, and then add a letter from the vice chancellor, David Petley, who said, I'm afraid we have agreed the completion. It's all gone through. Thank you, but no, thanks. And that was the end of it. So the treat the gardens now being bought by that sort of sort of landowner. It's a family, it's a family who live who live next to me, next door to it. And they're just going to break me and I wall it off and turn it into a part of the extension of the backyard. They keep it private and what they'll do, they'll do whatever they want to do with it. And, and who knows what happens next. So it's kind of, he wasn't the outcome we'd hoped for. It's a surprising outcome. Well, it's a very disappointing one, I think, because, you know, there we had in our hands as a country, as a nation, really, some, I think we had a responsibility to get this tree to sort of save it for the nation. Even if it's last year's life, we could have done a very interesting heritage centre, told the story, but that was not to be. Given that it was one of the 70, you know, top 70 trees in the Queen's Flatteman Jubilee, and given that the King has such a love of trees, and I guess like green agenda, was this ever anything that was flagged up to the palace? I wrote to the King. I wrote to the King. And I'd let her back. Did you? I'd let her back. And the letter came back saying, the King, as you might expect, doesn't get involved in anything, with political or political intervention. So I wrote to a lot of people or a lot of a lot of business leaders, Dyson, Paul Smith, all the people who would think with enough money of a coffers that could help with something on this scale. You know, I'm asking a lot, I suppose, because, but I didn't think it was a big ask. I mean, we're only really talking that the fund we were hoping to raise would have been 250,000. And the grand scheme of it, really is nothing, is it really? We think about it for something, I think, as worthy as this. So just to the donations, I think we got to something like 20,000, but then we had pledges of significant amounts more which were coming in. We were close to closing. But yeah, it just, you know, it was a bit disheartening as a country. We couldn't intervene. I contacted politicians, like every single member of different parties in the area to see if they could intervene with it. And the person who did was Robert Generich, who was the MP for New York. And they didn't really want to engage with him. I don't even responded until the very late point. So there was no dialogue. They wouldn't open up a channel of dialogue, not even tracking this. It's bizarre. I know that when we spoke, you were asking me a question about tree protection. So can you remember what your question was? Well, halfway through the campaign, when we were starting to raise the money, we did in the process ask Newark to put a TPO and no TPO, and no protection at all. So it was a conservation area? A conservation area. So what I was interested to find out was what is the distinction, the clear distinction, between the TPO and the conservation area. And the council, the newer council came back saying, oh, well, it's got this blanket protection of a conservation area. So don't worry. It's okay. You know, we'll find out if anything happens. But of course, as you kindly informed us and helped with it, it is absolutely not the case. And that technicality, you know, would have gone a way. It makes you think, you know, what is that bit of paper? Why could they not have just elevated its status and identified it, even if it was a tokenistic thing to say this tree is worthy of the highest protection in a very selfish, strange, spiteful way, actually, they kind of didn't do that. And you just wonder, what are the one of these levers of power there causing this, this problem, I think we have in situations like that, you know, the council also being the owner of the property, I could, I could get my head around why there may have been an agenda of some sort, but they're simply just the planning authority in this question. That was what the peculiarity of it all was that, you know, all it would have taken was for a planning officer to say, yes, we acknowledge that this tree is, is of this stature and this importance. But you see all of these things, I'm afraid they fall into the category of a bit too much pride and kind of, you know, people thinking that they're doing enough. And they just don't want to be shown up for us being negligent. You see, this, this is where it boils down to, it's about, it's about ownership and negligence at the end of the day. I do observe a feeling in myself at times that I think people get entrenched in a position, and then you can do all you can to show them why they should perhaps move from that position, but they feel they need to stick to their guns and they don't move. I, I'm not saying that's the case in this scenario because I haven't had any. So I've got to go this way. It was the case in this situation. I mean, I'm telling you with the, not from training university, the vice chancellor did not move an inch and it wouldn't even engage in conversation. And you'd have thought, no, if we're prepared off, you could be the money for this. Can you not even just engage and sit and create a smooth way for us to achieve it? It was, it was, there was an opportunity for some good publicity on behalf of both them and the council. Whereas I think the tone of the publicity has been a little negative, negative. So I mean to answer the question about TPOs and conservation areas, like the conservation area is obviously an area wide protection. If there is a tree in a conservation area and someone wants to do work to it, they have to give the planning authority notice that they intend to do work to it. And then the council either prove that, say fine, go ahead, or they say no. And by saying no, they do that by putting a TPO on. But that isn't the only way that TPOs get put in place. I mean, TPOs can be put in place for lots of different reasons. I'm involved in a claim at the moment where a tree was about to be removed in a subsidence claim. Some neighbours didn't want it removed and immediately the council came and put a TPO immediately in place on that day. I mean, it can be instant. You can call the council out and it can be done on that day. Obviously there's a process that's got to be gone through to make sure all the documents are in order, but it can be immediate. But again, I observe that councils planning authorities across the UK have got very different attitudes to the trees they want to protect, how they want to react to requests, the TPOs. And a lot of it comes down. I mean, I think a lot of it comes down to funding, but you were saying in this scenario that money wasn't an issue. That's what you were trying to do as a campaign. Absolutely not. No, I don't think it was a case of money. It was a case of will. It was a case of people wanting to see the possibilities and embrace it. You know, maybe change tag a little bit, but unshakeable, I'm afraid, in this sense. In terms of the protections that a conservation area and a tree preservation are to give, it's the same in terms of a sanction. So say if somebody comes along now and chops the tree down without the relevant permission, whether it's in a conservation area or whether there's a TPO, it is the same sanction. So it does have that. They are the same in that respect. But I think when we spoke, I said that the TPO tends to be searchable online. It can be registered against the property. It's almost got kudos. Yeah, absolutely. But it's also something where it's a preventative thing in a sense. The people who own the tree or the land are going to be much more likely that they know it's a TPO than they're in a conservation area. And by the time the tree is removed, it's too late then to learn all this stuff, isn't it? I mean, most of it is academic, isn't it? But I think when you've got a TPO on something, it's much more widely known, the knowledge being TPOed. I know this is a sale of parts. It was a sale of the garden only. If you were buying a property, I know in the forms and the process of buying a property, if there was a TPO on a tree in your garden, the solicitor should tell you there's a protected tree in your garden and this is what it means. Whereas if you're in a conservation area, and funnily enough, I looked at the exact form on Friday, the exact conveyance in form, it tells you you're in a conservation area, but very much from the attitude of you may need certain building consents to do various things. It's very much from a structure point of view rather than from a vegetation point of view. There's no mention of you're in a conservation area, therefore any trees are also going to be covered and the implications of that. So actually in the conveyance and process, you'd be advised if there was a TPO, but trees would get missed out of that advice pretty reasonably to be honest looking at the forms if you're just in the conservation area. I mean, that's a big distinction. Yeah, it is. So I was looking at exactly that question for a client on Friday, he was about to fill in. That form is called the TA-6. And yeah, conservation is very much just based on the building, whereas a TPO obviously is only based on... I think most people are reading it, isn't it? If you'd ask anyone in an area, that's probably what they're most likely to see. And as I say, it's too late when they've got the tree. Yeah. I mean, I guess that the people who have now bought the garden, they're well aware of the fact that they're... Oh yeah, no, I mean, I think they're as keen to celebrate it as anyone else would be, except that the point of view of the public or public ownership is for us, it was always about access. It was about allowing the tree to be celebrated for its status and have people come in and look at it. I mean, it's a splendid looking thing, you know, be in front of it. It's a very different thing to know, just to know it's there. Yeah. It almost speaks to you on a kind of spiritual level, I think. I mean, I felt that when I was depicting in my paintings, it's got an incredible surface of the tree itself. It's just the scale of it. Everything about it is a strong presence to be in front of. And that is Southwell, the local businesses all tell me that they get people almost every day coming saying, how can we see this tree? I can't get into it. I would say a bit slightly embarrassing on behalf of Southwell. You know, you're the most famous tree in the area. You can't even look at it. Do you know anything about the other 69 trees and the Queen's Placetal Tribute? Yeah, well, I mean, I think they're all sort of dotted about and they all have strong heritage links, generally ancient. But because there was a big focus on trees in the jubilee, wasn't there? There was the tree of life, wasn't there? Was the tree of life linked to saplings grown from the Sycamore Gap that had then been distributed to people that had applied for them across the UK? Because I know that a school in South Wales got one of the trees planted there in their schoolyards. There is, you know, that there's always a tree focus. The green canopy ultimately became part of the Queen's Green Canopy. It's sort of, it's a bit of a ghost organisation, really, because it's there, you know, you can read about it, but there is no any kind of management as if we had to create the Queen's Canopy. Because I was surprised to see this. I thought, well, surely there's somebody looking after the Greek canopy. What does it now mean, chosen by Queen Elizabeth II? And he said, I think, well, should we have interest in looking after these trees and going around seeing if they're sort of looked after or kept doing the public accessible? But no, the thing was kind of... On one of the, I mean, I think I've only done five or six of these, but one of the people I spoke to on the podcast was from the campaign team in the Woodland Trust. Oh, yes. And we spoke at that point, I spoke to him about a year ago, possibly, we spoke about Sycamore Gap, the Enfield Oak, the one that had been removed by the Toby Creek Carvery, and then also the Haringay Street Tree, the one in the midst of a slightest dispute with two insurers. And I think on one day he'd done a tour and gone and visited all three locations. And I'm not sure what the point is I'm making there, but I think there's a reliance on those sort of campaign teams to raise awareness of things. It doesn't depend on the government level, is it? So it does depend upon the people living locally and those with an emotional side. Like, funnily enough, the Enfield Oak, so people on my social media have been saying, I wonder if it's growing back, I wonder what the current condition of it is, because there's talk about that having been infected and needs to be found for safety reasons. And then one of my good friends lives around the corner. So I sent her out on the weekend to take photos of it. So she sent me photos on Saturday of its current position. I uploaded them onto my LinkedIn and said to everybody, tell me what you see. Just tell me in the comments what you're seeing. They're commenting, they're seeing regrowth, they're not seeing signs of, it showed signs of imminent failure or disease. So it's, yeah, again, I have no answers there, but it's interesting to throw open that debate. Well, unfortunately, again, this is part of one of those stories, which is we're too late to the party, obviously. So we have to be preventative and that's where the TPOs and the blog or something after the Sycamore Gap. Because the Sycamore Gap, the Enfield Oak, and this one, there wasn't a TPO. Like, would a TCO have made a difference and why wasn't there a TPO in place? Well, the Sycamore Gap, that was on land owned by the National Trust. And the reason for a TPO is to protect a private owner from doing works to a heritage tree or an important tree. Well, the National Trust didn't need to make sure that they were protected from doing works to that tree because they knew that they were the custodians, they were going to look after it. No one foresaw that somebody was going to enter onto the land and maliciously fell it. Enfield Oak, again, it was on land and it was owned by Enfield, at least out to Toby Carby, but owned by Enfield Council. The tree belonged to Enfield Council. They didn't need to protect themselves from felling their own trees. There was no TPO in place there. And then this scenario. And I almost feel like spot trying to anticipate all the things you might need to be protecting yourselves against because something's going to come from the left field and might surprise you. And if there isn't a TPO, then you can't, you haven't got that extra cover. No, and I think that's, there's moves, I think, but the Woodland Trust to create an elevated status of protection. And that's, that's hopefully something that we can least start off with. Yeah, the heritage TPO. Yeah. I mean, like in the Sycamore Gap, it would have made no difference. What it would have done, like it wouldn't have stopped those people coming and fell in the tree. And the ability to bring a criminal prosecution as a result of the TPO being there in that case didn't matter because the Northumbrian police took it on board and they brought the criminal prosecution. In Enfield, Met office, sorry, Met police didn't want to be involved and bring a criminal prosecution. They said it was civil and they stepped out. And to be honest, I'm not sure I'm ever going to know what happened in the background of that. But it certainly is an interesting discussion. I want to write a book on TPOs. It's definitely in the next book that I want to write because it is such a dynamic and multifactive topic. It's from a legal point. So it's really interesting. It is really interesting. Finishing off with a couple of questions then. One here, why do you think people felt so strongly about this tree once they understood stories? So I guess this is like the American, oh my God, why do you guys love your trees? So much apologies to the repetition. I think partly because when we got in there, when the story was evolving, we enabled it to create a bit of a narrative, I suppose, and they let people get aware of it. They followed the story, followed the progress. And I think people are quite alarmed that how negligent the whole process has been and how few people out there intervened or put their head above the parapet to create an intervention. I think that's what shocked and alarmed most people in this case. The tree of this stature, we can't look after that. What were the press saying to you? Because I thought you've been in touch with loads of press and what questions are ringing out in your... Well, I think things like, oh, you know, there's saplings for it. Surely that doesn't matter that it's got offspring elsewhere. The tree is about to die anyway or this sort of thing. And my argument would always be, well, you wouldn't send an elderly relative into the corner and say, look, your days are numbered. Just stay over there as long as you possibly can and we'll come back. It's that attitude of just total negligence. You want to celebrate that tree to the last living moment as best you can and enable other people to look at it and enjoy it as well. And that's all we wanted to do. We weren't calling anyone in to sort of prosecute them or do anything. We wanted just to give the tree the status it deserves and enable people to come and see it. So that's one thing I like about speaking to the press is they ask quite brutal questions that sound, I guess they sound a little bit heartless. They're asking the questions that you know a lot of people are going to be asking, you know, behind the scenes. And it can often involve a pretty passionate response. Do you know, I was watching something on social media last night. It was a bit, it was showing in Kew Gardens, they've painted some trees red. Have you seen that? Yeah. So in Kew Gardens, where trees have died and they've monolith them, so they're there, they're dead, but they're being kept as a structure. They've painted them red, like a blood red. So they become a bit of a monument and a piece of artwork to create a discussion about what the tree was previously. I think it's red because they're trees that have no longer been able, or it was the increasing temperatures in our changing climate, which was the final nail in the coffin, and to start a conversation about that. So that really struck me yesterday when I was looking at that piece of content from Kew Gardens. Very interesting legacy, isn't it? So it's a form of memorialising, isn't it, I suppose. Necessary. Yeah, very interesting. Right, final question then. What would you like listeners to feel, think or do after hearing you speak about the Bramley Apple tree? Well, you know, ultimately we failed in the campaign, and that's the first thing to acknowledge. It's a sad end, really, from my point of view, anyway. You know, the tree still lives. But I suppose when I'd like people to go away from this thinking, well, you know, if you see these trees that require our help, our intervention, don't wait for big government or any organisations to jump in, or conglomerates, which really ultimately are sort of faceless and slightly bureaucratic. I think, you know, as a campaigner, the only way of being effective with these sorts of things is take it on yourself, make people aware of it, do everything you can on your own personal level to put pressure and maintain that pressure. I think that's the way which we, first and foremost, make people aware and just, you know, have a sense of responsibility yourself for these living things. Yeah, and to echo that, and I've worked with a couple of people that have come to me as clients. One lady involved in oak tree in a neighbouring garden to her mum's house. That tree ended up being removed, but she campaigned so much for that. She now sits as a trustee on the Arboreal Cultural Association. Yeah. And what I say to campaigners who've been involved in something that ultimately hasn't succeeded is a big takeaway, is that you're becoming a step for somebody that's coming up behind you. So you may not have succeeded on this one in the way in which you wanted to, but you give a step up for the next campaign that comes behind you. We have to believe that, because I think if we do, if we don't, then... Well, I'm seeing that happen. I'm seeing people campaigning, you know, two or three years ago, people campaigning and it didn't succeed. You know, these really lower profile cases that have got some local press. But then I'm seeing other scenarios that look almost identical coming up now, and actually they are changing. Yeah. So I'm seeing... That's how you're right. I think it does create building blocks. Yeah. That's the important thing. So there are positives to be left from these sorts of situations. Yeah. Well, you know, thank you very much for getting in touch with us and for speaking to me about it. I was more than happy to talk about TPOs. Love to learn, more about the Bramley Apple train. Thank you for speaking to me today. Thank you. I'd better make it onto the lift coming out of there. No, I enjoyed that. When does it come out? I'm not sure how quickly Mike can do it in a couple of days. I remember speaking to one of my member campaigns too, and it's high. It's very demoralising. I've seen these campaigns shatter, really. Well, a few revolts. The indications of that are still ricocheting. That changed them all. That created the Abide Protect 2021. It changed the law. So I know it's a shit storm when it happened. Yeah, but they're all successive, which we've got rid of all the camps that were disrupted, trying to wipe the ball. Yeah. So it date quotes significant changes. And that's when I set my list.