Then It Died Of Dutch Elm (10 June 1978)

FRED …. A MAN OF THE TREES

Many who were youngsters here 20 or 30 years ago will remember old Fred French, who was killed at the age of 80 while cycling down from Little Brickhill in the dark.  Fred was an eccentric character.  That is not to denigrate him.  There are too few eccentrics today and society is less rich in texture for their disappearance.  He was “single” when I knew him and I believe he always had been, though I might be mistaken. He followed the unusual trade of a masseur and must have been good at his job, since although he was over 70 people were still being recommended to see him by satisfied ex-patients.

Fred was anti-smoking, anti-drinking, anti-meat-eating, anti-hunting, anti-polluting, anti-vivisecting and anti a good many other things besides.  Yet he was a good advertisement for his kind.  Up to the age of 75 he cycled an average of 50 miles a day.  At 78 he told me he had never had the doctor in his life.  Up to his death he was still cycling 25 miles a day.  I watched him toy with chest expanders like they were elastic bands.

Now, although Fred was anti so many things, he was pro a good many others.  Some children were afraid of his gaunt, untidy appearance, but most were fascinated by his fund of country lore, including his ability to tell the time within a few minutes without there being a clock or a watch in sight.  Above all, he was a lover of trees.

He belonged to a small society calling themselves the Men of the Trees and seemed to know every hedgerow tree between here and Northampton.  Whenever he saw one or two being removed he wrote to the local paper in protect.  I was reminded of Fred by Chris Binding’s recent Gazette article on the effect of Dutch elm disease in Milton Keynes, and who shall now say that Fred was not fundamentally right?  Yet, perhaps it is as well that he did not live to see the present devastation.  It would have broken his heart.  For this is something which even he could not have prevented.  It is very sad that nobody else can either.

At my son’s wedding at Guildford last June, one of the guests described himself to me as a “tree surgeon”.  At first I wondered whether this was just a fancy name for a wood cutter, but it was soon obvious that he was a specialist in tree disease.  I told him of the efforts being made in Milton Keynes to curb Dutch elm disease but he was very doubtful that anything effective would result.  A cure was beyond man’s present state of knowledge.

The disease is called Dutch because it was first discovered in the Netherlands, apparently in a comparatively mild form.

There were outbreaks in this country in 1927 and in the 1930’s, but they died down and the disease became endemic at a low level.  I first heard of it some 25 years ago from Major (now Sir) Ralph Verney – in county council.  I think – when he spoke of its potential dangers.  Nothing much more was heard of it until more recent years, although even at that time it was prevalent both on the Continent and in North America.  About ten years ago it appeared in a much more virulent form.

At first the worst-hit areas were near the ports.  But by 1971 one-sixth of the 30 million elms on this island were already affected.  Since then there has been no stopping it.  Yesterday (June 14) it was reported in the House of Commons that 11 million had died.

As far as I can gather, there are three main varieties of elms on the island: wych elm, “English” elm.  Wych elm is native to Scotland and is the least plentiful hereabouts.  English elm is mainly a midlands species and more plentiful.  Predominant are the great smooth-leaved elms, especially in East Anglia.  It is said that they were introduced to Britain in the Bronze Age.

The Romans used elm for timber and also as a forage plant.  Today we probably know elms best in association with hedgerows.

The presence of elms in Bletchley is denoted by places like Elm Terrace at Old Bletchley, and The Elms, the former large house now used by the council at the junction of Victoria Road and Vicarage Road.

Old photographs of Three Trees Square at Old Bletchley show those trees to have been elms. They also show that they were already dying.  The site formerly the Town Green (as distinct from the Church Green) now lies at least partly under the staggered crossroads, but old people still know it as Three Trees Square.

Dead elm still makes useful timber, whatever the cause of death, but if an old West Country rhyme is anything to go by, it does not make good firewood.  The last four lines of this 18-line rhyme are:

Holly logs will burn like wax

You should burn them green

Elm logs, like smouldering flax

No flames to be seen.

However that might be, John Constable has enshrined the elm for ever.  The great trees in his glorious paintings of the East Anglian landscape are smooth-leaved elms. It is a sobering thought that if he had lived in another age, they might not have been there for him to paint.