The common thread
After the last of our children moved out, my wife and I sold
from the three-storey terrace in Hammersmith, which had been the family home for
almost 27 years, and relocated to a large, four-bedroom house in Wheatbarry.
Many couples our age want to downsize to a smaller place. We
were quite the opposite. Having lived at close quarters for almost three
decades, Heather and I both appreciated the increased personal space afforded
by our change of address.
Our new home had previously been occupied by a pair of
elderly sisters who were both disabled. It came fitted with a stair lift, and one
of the smaller ground-floor rooms had been converted into an assisted bathroom.
The estate agent who showed us the property suggested that we rip the former out.
The latter, he advised my wife, could be converted into a sewing room.
Although living in a house without a space dedicated to
needlework had been a constant challenge, and had undoubtedly put a great
strain on our marriage, in the end we decided to disregard his advice and keep
the downstairs bathroom, although in deference to his suggestion it is now referred
to as “the sewing room.” After much debate we decided that it would be a good idea to hold onto the
stair lift as well, since it’s a good model and I’m sure that one of us will need
to make use of it sooner or later.
After spending many years sharing a garden with three other
properties, I have adjusted well to the novelty of having a large, open space
all to myself. At the far end, there is
a row of four, very tall cedar trees. When we first arrived there were five. The
one that we lost was shedding its branches in high winds and turned out to have
weak roots. We had it removed before it could fall and crush our neighbour’s
greenhouse.
Every year a tree surgeon - a young chap called Vincent – comes
around and gives the surviving quartet a health check and a bit of a prune. His
professional opinion is that they are weak specimens and will eventually go the
same way as their fallen sibling. He calls them Victory Cedars - Four of many thousand
that were planted in England to commemorate the end of the Second World War. The
seeds were apparently given away by one of the national newspapers. People
dutifully planted them in their gardens, or in public spaces, often with great
ceremony.
I first met Vincent a few hours after we moved in. I opened
the front door just as he was attempting to put a leaflet, advertising his services,
through the letterbox. The back garden had been neglected and was in a bit of
state. I asked him if he wouldn’t mind having a look at the trees. He said he
was happy to do it and returned the following day.
At the time Vincent was just starting out in the trade and
was using a second-hand van to move his gear around. Despite his best efforts
to remove the transfers promoting the business of the vehicle’s previous owners,
you could still discern the outline of the words “The pie man,” along with an
accompanying phone number, on both side panels.
He was very rough and ready in his approach to his work. His
method of reaching the upper branches of the cedars, which were a good 15-20
feet off the ground, involved shimmying up thick, hairy ropes, that were a cross
between jungle vines and giant dreadlocks. They were disturbingly warm to the
touch, as if alive. Small, naturally-formed pockets appeared intermittently along
their length. He would jam the various tools of his trade into these tiny
openings.
“They are really quite extraordinary things,” I remarked,
the first time I laid eyes on them.
“I got them in Romania. They’re made by birds...They’re
incredibly strong.”
To emphasise his last point he reached out to and gave one
of the dangling ropes a firm downward tug.
We didn’t know each other very well then, and I assumed that
he was pulling my leg. Later that day I did a search online and discovered that,
just as he claimed, the ropes had indeed been woven by a small relative of the House
Sparrow called the Puțină Frânghie Filtru (the Little Rope Maker).
They are tiny, wren-sized birds with unremarkable brown and cream
plumage and very short tail feathers. Their erratic, bobbing flight paths imitates
the movement of a small stone skimming across water. Like Swallows they breed
communally. Their nesting colonies take the form of thick ropes that are sometimes
several hundred feet in length. These are woven over many centuries and passed
down through the generations. They were once a common sight in Eastern Europe hanging
down cliff faces and the walls of old buildings. The activity of bacteria within
the ropes causes them to generate heat and act as incubators for the clutches
of eggs, which are laid in small pockets formed in the weave.
During the winter the birds migrate to parts of southern Africa.
In their absence their nests are co-opted by climbers, although in many countries
there are strict laws governing when they can be used recreationally, so as not
to disrupt breeding. In the past it was common to see them employed as bell pulls in Romanian churches,
although that practice is now outlawed.
Incredibly, an examination of the materials used in one of
these cords found well-preserved strands of human hair, over 500 years old. Using
DNA profiling, scientists were able to link this hair, along with other less
venerable follicle samples, to several generations of a family who lived on a
farm nearby. During their lifetime each person shed hair that was taken by the
birds and woven into this common thread, tying the family to the area and binding its
individual members together down through the centuries.
When Vincent returned the following year he had ditched his Romanian
ropes in favour of professional-looking climbing gear. I went out with a mug of
tea and some biscuits, to find him suspended in a harness ten feet in the air.
“What happened to your old ropes?” I called out, as I
approached across the dewy lawn. The steaming tea sloshing against the steeply angled
sides of the mug.
He explained that somebody had purchased them from him on
EBay for £3000.
“They’re a protected habitats now, aren’t they. You can’t
take them from the wild like you used to. That’s pushed up the market value. I
couldn’t turn down money like that.”
He lowered himself to the ground and took the mug of tea
from me.
“My wife used to refer to you as Tarzan.”
“To be honest, they looked good, but they were bit of an
affectation.”
*
By Mark Sadler.
