I\'m sitting in the garden
With my small son on my knee
He looks up at me with big brown eyes
And says “Tell me about Granda\'s tree”
My father planted a tree
In nineteen forty two
He nurtured it and hadn’t bargained
On just how big it grew
When I was just seven years old
I had a love of climbing trees
Many times mum put plasters
On my bloodied and skinned knees
I can remember one day
Wearing my new party dress
Peering in through the window
A grubby bedraggled mess
I’d climbed as high as I could go
Then heard a quite loud crack
The branch it snapped in two
And I landed on my back
I’d excelled myself on this occasion
You could say I’d gone the whole hog
I’d landed on a little offering
Left by next doors dog
I remember as a little girl
My father built me a house in the tree
A sturdy wooden house with windows
Especially for me
When I was in my tree house
I could be almost anywhere
In a tropical jungle
Or in a cave hiding from a grizzly bear
Hanging onto my rope ladder
With a plastic cutlass on my hip
I could be looking for buried treasure
My tree house a pirate ship
Underneath the carpet
In the middle of the floor
My father had lovingly made me
A little brass-hinged trap door
Whenever I got fed up
Of being stuck inside
I’d open up that trap door
And go straight down the slide
Sometimes I would stand
For maybe half an hour
And pretend I was a princess
Imprisoned in an ivory tower
Some days I’d be a cowgirl
On a wild west ranch
And sometimes I’d pretend to be
A monkey swinging from a branch
One day I picked some flowers
And mum asked what they were for
I said “they are for my cottage
With roses around the door”
My son is looking wistful
Then he smiles at me
He says “mummy I would love
To see my Granda’s tree”
Tears come into my eyes
My son’s smile turns into a frown
I say “The tree\'s no longer there
The new owners chopped it down”
My son says it is sad
That the tree\'s no longer there
But no-one can destroy the memories
That my son and I share