The Enduring Souvenir
How the catastrophic loss of Britain’s famous Robin Hood Tree has changed the landscape and people’s lives forever
“‘Scuse me, mate. You couldn’t take a photo of me and the girlfriend by the tree, could you?”
He held out his phone towards me and pointed with his thumb to the Sycamore Tree over his shoulder.
“She’s been nagging me for years to come and see it, so it would be great if we could have a photographic souvenir of our visit.” He beamed at me, although I sensed some nervousness in his voice.
“Yeah, sure,” I replied.
Tourists often ask me this question. I think they see my Fuji X-T2 hanging around my neck and think I should be capable of taking a good photo. (I have been lucky at times 😁.)
As I stepped closer to take his phone, he leaned forward and whispered in my ear.
“Could you take a couple of us standing by the tree? And then I’m going to do something else, which my girlfriend isn’t expecting, so could you just keep taking photos?”
“Happy to help,” I offered.
He gave me the phone, then dashed back to his girlfriend’s side.
We were at Sycamore Gap, where the Sycamore Tree, also known as Robin Hood’s tree because of its role in the 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. It’s such an iconic tree, here on Hadrian’s Wall, not far from Haltwhistle, in the Northumberland National Park.
“Smile!” I called, as I raised the phone and took several photos of them framed by the trunk and its burgeoning branches.
The chap winked at me, then broke away from his girlfriend and pointed up at the top of the tree. As she turned to look up at where he was pointing, he suddenly dropped to one knee, pulled out a ring box, and offered it up to her.
When the girlfriend couldn’t see what he’d pointed to she turned back to him and realised he was proposing.
I kept taking photos!
There were lots of tears, followed by a vigorous nodding of her head and an extending of her hand to accept the ring.
Somehow, I still kept taking photos.
“Congratulations,” I offered, after allowing them a few moments of celebration. I handed back his phone. “I took loads, so I hope there’s something useful there.”
“Man, that’s brilliant!” he said, scrolling through the dozens of images. “Thank you so much!”
With that, I continued my walk along Hadrian’s Wall.
Fast forward a month later, and I, like thousands of others, have been devastated to learn the horrendous news that some idiot (I’ve toned down my language considerably for publication) has cut down the iconic tree. It has been slaughtered. Three hundred years of undisturbed growth has been violated and destroyed.
That was my first and only, time visiting Sycamore Gap. The weather was gorgeous (considering it was a Bank Holiday Monday in the UK) and I took hundreds of photos on my camera. Indeed, when I returned home, I wondered if I’d taken too many.
But now the tree is gone, I appreciate that you can never have too many photos. In fact, I wonder whether I took enough.
That sight, that perfectly developed, perfectly positioned tree made the landscape what it was. It was well-known before the Kevin Costner film, but it was even better known after that. What better souvenir of that visit than a photo?
And now, that souvenir opportunity has gone. Forever.
This whole episode has made me see that the best souvenirs are the photos we take on our travels. Yes, it’s wonderful to buy a tangible reminder of our trips, whether it be an ornament, charm, or something practical, especially if our purchase helps the local economy.
But a photo captures the memory. Isn’t that the true souvenir?
Admittedly, we can’t pack our memories in a suitcase and scare airport security, as Michele Maize did in her ghost smuggling story. But we can print out our photographic memories and stick them in a journal like Anne Bonfert did with the wishes her students from Ghana wrote down for her in her story launching this month’s challenge (I loved that idea — what a memento of that trip!).
But what this tragedy at Sycamore Gap has reminded me of is that the world is constantly changing. The landscape changes, both naturally and unnaturally, and so our photos not only document our personal travels, but the ever-changing world. What better way to share our travels than with a photographic souvenir?
I wrote about my walk along Hadrian’s Wall last month (you can read my story on Globetrotters here) and in it, I mentioned how every souvenir on sale in the nearby National Park Visitor Centre shop bore an image of the Sycamore Tree. Everything. Every tea towel, pen, notepad, T-shirt, sweater, pottery, postcard, jar of honey and bottle of beer.
Because whatever the souvenir is, it needs something to link it back to where it was bought. But now that tree has gone. That link has been severed. Whoever cut down that tree has destroyed a landscape, a history, and the logos of many local businesses, and caused a headache for the souvenir suppliers, too.
I can’t imagine what the young couple whom I met are feeling now. I don’t doubt the Sycamore Tree would have been a pilgrimage for those special wedding anniversaries. But some idiot has taken away those opportunities from them.
But at least they’ll always have the photos I took on their mobile phone for them (their phone — not mine, which is why I don’t have a photo to post here in my story!). Those photos captured those magical memories for them.
As I scroll through my images of the Sycamore Tree now, I can appreciate how fortunate I was to travel there and witness it with my eyes, and ultimately my camera.
I could have bought a notepad with the sycamore tree printed on it. But it wouldn’t have evoked the same memories as looking at the photos.
From now on, I know the best souvenirs I can collect are the ones taken on my camera.
