S is for STUMP

Just across the stream that separates the two fields behind our home, in one corner of the lower paddock, lies a small sheltered area. Along the two hedgerows that form a border with the field are several entry or exit points that require extreme caution as one moves across the uneven and mucky terrain. Within its walls stand the remains of several elderly apple trees that bear little fruit nowadays and also a few damson plum bushes whose branches look decidedly frail and who now produce their less than bountiful harvest in silence and without praise from intruders. Everywhere lies evidence of an enclosure that has remained unattended for many years and its prime function in this new century is in providing shelter for the cattle that seek its covering during a summer shower or a cold autumn. By winter time,they too have gone and it is left to spend the winter months in loneliness, except for the occasional rabbit of fox that might find refuge on a dark night. But it wasn't always the case. My father, in his earlier years and when his memory could recall local history in detail, had often recounted that our ancestral home form only a few generations back was sited there. Indeed, closer inspection of the central area reveals many piles of well-fashioned, oblong stones, some still in wall formation, others randomly distributed on the ground, but all providing enough evidence that some form of human existence had been in place, before the family home was relocated to its present hilltop position. It's still there though there is little left now, but there is enough to remind me of our humble origins.

Many years ago, when both our lads were still looking forward to their teens, we buried a small red tin biscuit box at the corner of the garden. It was one of those boxes that seem to be everywhere at Christmas, with about twelve different types of biscuits that essentially all taste the same. Anyway, with the biscuits all consumed some months or even years earlier and the box having no useful function beyond hoarding old nails and bolts, we decided to bury it 'a la Blue Peter' as a sort of time capsule, to show what life was like in the early nineties. In the days following its burial, they both wanted to dig it up and it was difficult to explain the need for patience to young minds as they waited impatiently to grow up.I'd like to tell you what we put inside, but almost twenty years later I haven't got a clue. I hope I can still find it or that the boys remember about it some time in the future, but it is there and it will always be a reminder of a special time in our lives.

When I was their age, I owned an Aston Martin. It was gold coloured, had red upholstery and if your passenger became annoying, the ejector seat became handy. I've wondered why they are not a prerequisite in any family saloon! Anyhow, it also had twin machine guns on the front bumpers and a bullet shield that extended from the boot for added protection. Most of the villains I met while driving it, never had a chance as it raced across the living room carpet. James Bond would have been so proud of me. I found it a few years ago, in an old box of toys I had stored in the attic for my children and there it lay at peace alongside the Batmobile and Napoleon Solo's car. It's still there and though I don't burn its rubber on the carpet any more, it reminds me of every child's period of make believe.

Which brings me to the stump. It's only about eighteen inches high now, covered in moss, a home to an assortment of insects and with the bark peeling off on one side, partly due to the rigorous testing it receives from our cat's claws. It stands at the far end of our garden where once it was surrounded by a host of apple trees in an orchard that provided a dark canopy and was a flurry of noise at this time of year as the fruit was collected and removed. It's still there and although it seems to serve no useful purpose, since its fruit bearing days have long been resigned to history, I'm reluctant to remove it, for it reminds me of a time when our present home didn't exist and when more than just the landscape was different.

And in my recollections, I remember the cross. Not the one on the chapel nearby but the one that I have never seen. The one that carried the last breaths of a person I've never seen. But through the testimony of others who lived with Him, I know He existed and I know He carried His cross to die for me. For it is through their memories of Jesus, recorded in His book, the Bible, that I see my past and why He had to die. As Paul says, 'For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.'

It's still there today for no one can ever remove its power and it reminds me not only of my past but also of my future.