From the Wylye Valley Life magazine, Saturday 15th August 1987:
The Queen Mother’s Tree Again!
On August 4th was celebrated the Queen Mother’s 87th birthday. For the benefit of newcomers to the valley it seems worth recalling the tale of the Queen Mother’s tree. A letter appearing in one of the local papers prior to her eightieth suggested that a tree be planted in the town to honour the occasion. The idea appealed to the Warminster Town Council of the time. Wits and pencils were sharpened and to it they went.
I have no idea what attendance money is paid to a town councillor, and I doubt whether others do either or even much care, but the matter of the Queen Mother’s tree proved to be one of the most intractable problems undertaken in council. What sort of tree? Suppose it was vandalized? Ah, we’d all look silly then! And so on, proving how any simpleton can make a suggestion that wise heads take time to carry out.
In an effort to revive the council’s flagging hopes of success, a further letter appeared in one of the local papers, signed this time on behalf of the Warminster Civic Trust. (I must be careful here. I am a wholehearted supporter of the aims of the Trust and pay my annual subscription as I know all members do). A single tree to mark the event? queried the letter. Never! A single tree? No, let us do a deed worthy of the occasion. Not one tree but eighty – nothing less! We need an avenue of trees, one that will stretch from the Western Car Park to Weymouth Street. Boldness, imagination! Come on Warminster!
The Council caught its collective breath over this vision on the grand scale. Eighty trees! Pencils were re-sharpened, heads bent over the Council table, designs were drawn, considered, pronounced on, agonized over. Ah, the cost! Too expensive. Out of the question. Can’t be done. After the heady consideration of a whole avenue of trees, to plant a single sapling now seemed futile, even ludicrous, an idea to be abandoned.
Not entirely. One councillor more determined than the rest went ahead and planted a tree. But the place chosen was unfortunate, so out of the way that scarcely anyone knew of its whereabouts. Feeling itself inadequate, unwanted, unworthy of any plaque even, the tree grew depressed. It lingered on and then died. When I visited the spot recently I saw the dead tree had been removed, only its wooden support remained to record its shame.
Ma’am (if the Royal eye should ever light on these words) bear with us and forgive. We may yet do you justice. We have a bypass under construction, the result of more than eighteen years of struggle by our local member of Parliament, a specialist in foreign affairs, who found this one as stubborn as any he involved himself in, I mean in goading successive Secretaries of State for Transport to get the thing started. Wait until you are ninety. Ma’am, we beg you, and we could have planted along its ample margins an avenue of trees worthy of a Queen. And have room for ten more. The contractors (Alfred McAlpine) building the bypass might well co-operate and suggest where a minimum of 87 trees would look their best. I know of at least one local organisation whose patron is the Queen Mother and which would be proud to donate a tree. There could well be others who would wish to do the same. Yes, I bear in mind there may be other and better ideas. There is no monopoly in dreaming.
Contributed by Michael Joscelyne, Manor Gardens, Warminster.