Forest of Dean

The area is characterised by more than 110 square kilometres (42 sq mi) of mixed woodland, one of the surviving ancient woodlands in England. A large area was reserved for royal hunting before 1066, and remained as the second largest crown forest in England, the largest being New Forest.

Ali has cousins who live there. The idea of an ancient forest appeals to me. But, above all, this particular forest, the Forest of Dean, has struck a resonance in me solely because I had a friend at school called Nigel Dean. He was a year or two below me and our paths crossed because he attended the Christian Union. I remember a school trip I organised, with the help of our RE teacher, to see a Christian group called the Forerunners perform in Southampton. They sang a re-hash of Bridge over Troubled Water which meant nothing to me at the time, having been brought up to eschew pop music. After the event I remember how Nigel was quick to identify Simon and Garfunkel and I was impressed with his superior knowledge - perhaps that was the beginning of my interest in their music.

Wyke Lodge Internees - Sept 1967 to July 1968

Peter Symonds was part border and part day student. The borders lived in a number of houses of which Wyke Lodge was one. Whilst browsing an old boys forum I found this picture where I recognised my best friend at top right, but would not have known Nigel in the front row, third from the left, had the forum not given a list. The very poor resolution doesn't help.

Strange how association with a name, a surname at that, should turn my attention to a particular swathe of woodland. But so it has and, at last, I have seen a bit of it when we stayed with one of Ali's cousins in Cinderford on the way home from our recent UK trip.

And so I grabbed at our host's offer of an early morning walk through the forest that starts just behind his back garden and here is my GPS track. Nice as it was to take a morning stroll, this bit of woodland did not appear to be majorly different to any other woodland I have walked through which was a tad disappointing. I must explore more of the Forest next time...

Apart from trees which one kind of expects in a forest, the only feature of interest was this tower, complete with pulley, which we supposed was once over coal mine shaft: there is apparently much coal beneath the forest.