The damage came from an interesting sequence of events. There had been a prolonged period of wet and mild weather in the South East. We lived in Harefield, near Uxbridge at the time, and we had no telephone, as the junction boxes were flooded.
The result was that trees were still in full leaf, and the sodden ground provided less support for the roots. We were away, instructing at a hedgelaying training course, followed by the national competition in Yorkshire. There were a lot of tree surgeons from the worst-hit areas of Kent and Sussex there, who lost out on work. We got home to find no electricity, and a Mulberry tree on our roof.
I was at college at Farnborough, doing a postgraduate course in Conservation Management, but I still managed to fit in some clearance work. A lot of that was extremely dangerous, especially large Beech, which had root-plated. I'd be interested to see the post-storm chainsaw accident lists.
We were at a reunion for a group which bought a wood in memory of a friend in early 1987 this weekend. That wood has an interesting structure now. It's on the Wealden clay near Tunbridge Wells, and the largest trees are Ash, with large areas of even-aged Birch and Alder, there's a notable absence of Oak and Beech, with some large Cherry still present.
The group was from the London Conservation Volunteers, who did weekend work parties. They had their heyday when Dutch Elm Disease was at its height, as there was a tremendous amount of work to be done. DED was a contributory factor in the 1987 damage, as it had left holes in the tree canopy, which promoted windblow.
This weekend I felled my first victims of Ash Dieback, so the cycle may repeat itself. I'm concerned that the response is a bit slow. Standing dead trees are hard to fell, as you can't influence the direction of fall. That caused deaths in the 70s and 80s with Elm. I foresee similar problems with Ash.
