Sunday 28 August 2016

Ever Built a Tree House? The inspiration behind my People's Friend Story


When my husband was a boy, he loved building things: dens, camps... you name it. His garden had a swing and a small lawn where he used to camp out on summer days but what it didn't have was a tree house and that was because it didn't have a tree.

Luckily for him, and his like-minded friends, at the end of the road was a wood and this was where they would go to play. Dens and camps were dutifully constructed and so too was a tree house, right in the arms of a chestnut tree.

I asked him what they used to build this house with its bird's eye view and he just said, "Oh, you know - old packing cases and stuff that was lying about."

Actually, I didn't know. Never having had a head for heights, a tree house was not something I'd ever wanted or considered building. I was happy playing with my Tressy and Cindy dolls on the safety of my lawn.

When my own girls were little, their father built them a Wendy House. It was just like having a tree house except it was not in a tree. I'd sit inside it with them and read them stories (something I'd never have been able to do if the house had been built in the boughs of the apple tree next to it).

This must all have been in my mind when I wrote my story, Magic Moments, which is published in the latest People's Friend Special. It's about a boy whose father builds him a tree house. It's his place of refuge - especially in the days after his father death. It's only when he invites a special someone to join him for tea in his special place in the treetops that his family can start to heal.


When I think about it, trees must be a thing of mine as I've written two other stories, The Willow Tree, and Up a Tree which have both been published in The Friend (under other titles). Another is with them at the moment!

Have trees featured in your own childhood at all?

17 comments:

  1. Going to my grandparents cottage when I was a little girl they had an orchard and I used to love playing in there. Never very athletic I only managed to climb trees to the very lowest branches but I always wished I was brave enough to climb higher.

    The Wendy House sounds a beautiful alternative to me! We had a summer house in our garden when I was a little girl and it became everything to my friends and me in our imaginative games xx

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    1. We had an apple tree in our garden. Like you, I was able to climb up onto the lowest branches but my sister would always be above me.

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  2. I love trees and always have - not climbing them as I'm not great with heights either, but I like walking in woods, picking ripe fruit, or sitting propped up against the trunk.

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    1. I always love taking the children around the woods at Woods Mill when I worked for the Sussex Wildlife Trust.

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  3. Not a tree house as such, Wendy but I've very happy memories of building dens, complete with old cushions and bits of carpet. Enid Blyton's Secret Seven and Famous Five had a lot to answer for!

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    1. Oh, I loved the Famous Five too... and so did my children.

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  4. We never had a tree suitable for a tree house either but I did build dens in the local woods. I loved Enid Blyton's 'The Faraway Tree' and believed I'd found that very tree in my woods. Used to visit it and wait hopefully for one of the knobbly little doors to open ...

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    1. I never read that story. You'll have to tell me it when we next meet for teacakes!

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  5. I love trees too, in fact our house is called Treeview. As children my best friend and I had a 'special' tree we used to sit under to eat our lunch at school, and we were convinced it had magic powers. (We were very young, I hasten to add!)

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    1. I love the fact that your house is called Treeview... mine is just called No 3!

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  6. My dad built me a wooden wendy house, and when we moved we took it with us. He and my grandad dismantled it and reassambled it in the garden of our new home. It's making me quite teary just thinking about it. As for trees, I once got my knee stuck between two branches of our apple tree, and I still have the scar to prove it.

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    1. What a lovely memory, Julia. Your father and granddad obviously knew how much your tree house meant to you.

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  7. Caught myself humming 'The Ashgrove' only this morning. Remembering an ash tree from long ago, and hoping the dreaded Die-Back keeps off them!
    Trees are a lovely inspiration.

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  8. A schoolfriend of mine had the most wonderful weeping willow in her back garden. The fronds came right down to the ground and parting them to go through took you into a wonderful space of light, shade, a willowy and cut grass smell. We often played under there. I can see just such a willow tree in a near neighbour's garden from my kitchen window now and I love to watch it green-up in the spring and wave in the breeze. As for dens, at home we used to make them in the bramble thickets and amongst the bamboos on the side of the railway embankment. I know there were rats there and, when I think now of the bugs we could have caught from the old, holey sofa and damp mattress we dragged into the dens, I cringe. But we didn't catch anything... other than a telling-off when we ruined my mum's frying pan when I borrowed it to cook sausages on the bonfire we made. Happy days!

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    1. My mum has the hugest weeping willow in her garden. It was the inspiration for my People's Friend story The Willow Tree (I'd forgotten that one). Hope you bought your mum a new frying pan!

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  9. Lovely post, Wendy. Although I loved playing in the woods when young and still love trees, I've never had a tree house!

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