The Blackened Oak Tree
ARTICLES of GENERAL INTEREST
THE BLACKENED OAK TREE
1882
The sky went dark over the area. In the small village of Wenvoe near Cardiff, people took to their homes as a great storm was coming in from the west. At the east end of the village, towards Cardiff, was a field in which stood a large oak tree reaching one hundred and thirty feet high. The tree was around four hundred years old and stood dead centre of the field. Thunder and lightning began to hit the area. A bolt of lightning hit the oak tree, splitting it and setting fire to the tree.
The rain came down hard on the oak, putting out the fire. It was covered in soot and had been reduced to twenty feet high. As the storm moved away, something moved in a crack at the bottom of the tree and disappeared into it. A small plume of smoke came out of the top of the Blackened Oak Tree.
1943
The Wenvoe Women’s WRVS Choir Committee meeting was underway in the school hall. Doris Davies was the chairwoman, leader of the choir of fifteen women and my Mam. I was watching from the corner of the hall. I was seven years old. My name is Doreen. I would take over the choir in the early sixties when it would change its name to the Wenvoe Women’s Choir.
“Right” said Doris, “we will have a space at the Wenvoe Summer Fete in one weeks’ time to sing one song – any suggestions?”
Mrs Howarth, who was the doctor’s wife, suggested a song. “How about Greensleeves? That’s always a popular song and the choir already know it.”
Everybody in the choir nodded their heads including Doris, who thought it was a good choice.
“Right” said Doris, “we will meet in two days’ time to practice the song before preforming at the fete.”
It’s up to the WRVS to arrange the seats and food and drinks at the field of the burned-out oak. The oak tree had been burned out since the end of the nineteenth century. The field had always been nutritious and a great grower of crops. The owner of the field had been told never to take out the old, burned oak tree as it contained magical qualities. Little children from the village had always played there for years since the incident of the thunderstorm, saying there was a fairy living in the tree. This used to make their parents laugh.
Nearly all the men from the village had joined the war effort and the men who were left, worked on the land. A couple of days before the fete, I was playing with my friends in the burned-out field. Billy a lad from the village, about six years old and from a poor family in the village, had rickets in his legs and had come to the field to see the other children play. He sat with his back to the tree and laughed at the other children playing. Suddenly the sky went very dark and a blinding light came from the bottom of the tree.
A beam of light touched Billy’s legs and he cried out. The light disappeared and the sky was bright again. Billy slowly stood up and shouted, “I feel better.” Billy then began running around the tree shouting “I feel better” several times. Then he ran out of the field and down to his house in the village. The rest of the children in the field didn’t seem to notice what had happened. I felt I was the only one who saw it. Billy’s rickets never returned, and he went on to live a long and happy life.
The fete went off without a hitch with the choir singing ‘Greensleeves’ at the end of the show.
2010
Bernice Watkins was the choir’s new leader since 1988. Her mother was one of the Windrush generation and had come to Cardiff from Jamaica in the 1950s. She was a nurse at Llandough hospital and married Ronnie Watkins, a young copper from Grangetown. They moved to Wenvoe in the seventies.
The choir met in the new community centre for their weekly meeting. “I’ve chosen a song for the annual Wenvoe fete in the burned oak field. It’s going to be Home in the Meadow from the movie, How the West Was Won.”
“We have two weeks to learn the song”, said Bernice.”
The choir consisted of around twenty women from the village. Doreen would co-ordinate the seating from the hall to the field. I was now seventy-five years old and still a member of the choir. I had handed the reins over to Bernice back in the early nineties. I was still fit and was able to do the small tasks that were given me.
The day of the fete came quickly; it was a beautiful sunny summer’s day in the village. All the seats and food stalls where prepared in the field. The small stage was set-up next to the old oak tree in the middle of the field. All the people who did their acts came on and did well.
The choir was the last act to go on. They started their song. In the corner of her eye Doreen could see a light come up from the bottom of the tree and a glimmer around the choir. Then, the old choir from the 1940s appeared at the back of the new choir. One choir sang the new song, and the old choir sang Greensleeves. It’s what the people called a mash-up of voices. I was sitting in the front row of the crowd and a bright light shot out of the tree and landed next to me. A voice said to me from the light “It’s time to go now Doreen.” I closed my eyes and fell into a beautiful sleep. The song finished and everybody was clapping. Everyone got up to walk back down to the village. Bernice came over to the seats, “Come on Doreen wake up, it’s all finished now. Doreen! Doreen! Oh no – someone call an ambulance.”