I knew them
said Mary Smith, "it says RH loves MS".

I realised that I could be getting out of my depth, and longed to be in my office, away from here and this old lady, snug, and with a mug of tea in my hand.

She went on …"He had a penknife with a spike for getting stones from a horse's hoof, and I helped him to carve my initials.
We were very much in love, but he was going away, and could not tell me what he was involved in the army. I had guessed of course. It was the last evening we ever spent together，because he went away the next day, back to his Unit. "

Mary Smith was quiet for a while, then she sobbed. "His mother showed me the telegram. 'Sergeant R Holmes ….. Killed in action in the 9)invasion of France'".

"'I had hoped that you and Robin would one day get married" she said, "He was my only child, and I would have loved to be a Granny, they would have been such lovely babies'- she was like that! "

"Two years later she too was dead. 'Pneumonia, following a chill on the chest' was what the doctor said, but I think it was an old fashioned broken heart. A child would have helped both of us."

There was a further pause. Mary Smith gently caressed the wounded tree, just as she would have caressed him. "
And now they want to take our tree away from me." Another quiet sob, then she turned to me. "I was young and pretty then, I could have had anybody. I wasn't always the old woman you see here now. I had everything I wanted in life, a lovely man, health and a future to look forwards to".

She paused again and looked around. The breeze gently moved through the leaves with a sighing sound. "There were others, of course, but not a patch on my Robin!" she said strongly. "And now I have nothing - except the memories this tree holds.