Beech trees reached Britain about 8 000 years ago & they were workhorses not ornaments
- fuel for Romes glassworks; firewood for London; oars for the ships of Venice; raw material for furniture cut & turned by bodgers who lived like nomads among the trees in huts made from beechwood shavings. Mabey covers Europe as well as Britain & autobiography as well as history & natural history. His beeches are characterful
- hectic gale-sculpted gnomic
- & he writes about the bluebells orchids fungi deer & badgers associated with them as well as the narratives we tell about trees & the images we make of them. Many other kinds of tree are featured & the portraits & celebrations of the beech always point to the larger story. More than all this Beechcombings" is a personal investigation of the ambivalent engimatic relationship that humans have with trees."