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Experiences of Dutch Elm Disease 

Below we list a selection of responses from Daily Telegraph readers, detailing their experience of Dutch Elm Disease. We welcome further contributions. Contact details are available here.

In September 1962 while travelling back to Kent from a holiday in Cornwall I remember being struck by the beauty of so much of the landscape through which we drove. The golden light cast by the late summer sun behind us onto the trees in the unfolding landscape in front of us reminded me forcibly of paintings by Constable. The next time we drove to Cornwall was thirteen years later in the very hot summer 1976 with two small children in the back of the car. I'd been looking forward to the drive so much because of my previous memories of the landscape through which we would be going. However, I was to be bitterly disappointed and overcome with bewilderment at what I saw - a surrounding landscape full of the spindly white ghosts of dead trees. This time the landscape seemed reminiscent of scenes from the first world war painted by Paul Nash. It was then I realized that what I had always thought of as the eternal archetype of Englishness, the English countryside, was gone for ever. What I felt then and still feel is grief.
In that summer of 1976 we had the greatest difficulty in finding en route even the smallest amount of shade beneath which to shelter from the sun while giving the children a break.

Sarah Bussy

We suffered a tragic loss of our elms on the village green in Chenies, Bucks which belongs to The Bedford Settled Estates but is leased to the Chenies Parish Council. The elms were not only a very visual part of the village but were the nesting site of many birds and we felt most particularly the loss of the Tawny Owls who had nested there year after year. When the disease struck and I became aware that an inoculation was available I desperately tried to persuade the Estate to take whatever action was possible and they did eventually try the inoculation, but, of course, it was to no avail and in due course all the trees were felled.
For many years the green was very bare, the only remaining tree being the oak, planted on the occasion of the silver jubilee of King George the fifth. The Bedford Estates planted a number of replacement trees and these are now growing well but we still miss the old elms
I attach two photos, one is c.1910 and the other as it is today.

Nigel Ince

I live in Blenheim Chase, Leigh on Sea, Essex. I moved here at the age of 9 with my parents in 1953, into what was a new Council estate. Previously, as I much later learned, the road in front of the houses was little more than a country lane with tall Elms 60 to 70 ft high along much of its length. In fact the estate had been influenced by these and our single road at that time had on the opposite (North) side a line of elms running approx. East- West some 60 to 70 ft from the front of the houses. They were spaced about 30 to 40 feet apart. The other side of them was an unmade cart track and then another line of mature Elms, wider spaced, scattered along the hedgerow which consisted mostly of elm suckers bordering the field roughly E-W, now a park, that was part of Bentals Farm. The Essex Weatherboard farmhouse was at the end of the track about 300yds from where I live - now a car ark for the park and Fire Station on the site.

Sometime in the 1960's the road was made dual carriageway and the cart track, along with the farmhouse disappeared but the Elms remained. Rather interestingly all the other large trees round the four fields that now make up the park were and still are Oak, including some very handsome specimens with 2/3' diameter trunks and smaller gnarled specimens.

But back to the Elms. I mentioned earlier that the estate design had been influenced by the elms. Four houses west of mine about 100/150ft. there is a large gap between the fourth house and the next and also at this point the road curves sharply to the right. Here was a line of, if I remember correctly, 6 Elms running roughly North - South 5 forming the back garden boundary with one in line out the front whose trunk was about 2' from the kerb. The gap was due to the wider gardens to accommodate the trees which were very close together and the bend to avoid the northern most tree which stood a bit further from the rest of the line. My understanding is that this N-S row was left because they were a visual marker for aircraft to turn on their approach to Southend Airport ~ in those days little more than an airfield. Indeed when the airport developed its business during the 1960's aircraft would approach from the SE and turn over ours and neighbouring gardens just East of the trees (still do) and out front once in a while you would see the odd twig broken off the road line trees as they went over.

So having outlined the environment into which I moved on to memories. Well as you can imagine I was not the only "new kid on the block" and trees meant climbing which we did, scaling virtually all of them as high as we could get, except those in the back garden, rope swings and so forth. Collecting all sorts of bugs that thrived there, my particular interest was moths. We didn't stop at the Elms of course I at one time or another climbed all the Oaks in the park along with my friends being chased off by the Park Keeper (Parkie) threatening all sorts of retribution ~ all part of the game.The father of my friend *Peter (*he still lives there) in whose garden the N-S line was could often be seen shooting Pigeons that roosted in the trees. 

On the Home front the trees were also an important source of fuel for my parents and neighbours, all had open fires. During the autumn and winter gales deadwood and frequently large branches or boughs would come down. If it was outside your house you had first pick, so to speak, to cut up into logs or us children to collect the fallen deadwood. The tree at the bend was the largest of all and was known to us as "The Big Tree". So named because fingertip to fingertip it took about 9 of us youngsters to surround it and was the "meeting place" ~ see you at the Big Tree everyone knew it even the adults. Around September/October every year the night air would be pierced by the shriek of the many owls that came presumably to overwinter in the trees - by March/April they would be gone. Or in the warmer months stand in the garden front or back and have bats crisscrossing almost as plentiful as sparrows.

Then one grows up and they become just part of the landscape but ecologically very important. Dutch Elm came along as you are more than aware. It arrived here I think around 1971/2 perhaps a bit earlier but all the trees felled in or by 1973 which I remember since it was the year I got engaged and the replacement planting mostly ornamentals was done in November 1974 as we discovered, to my new wifes delight, on our return from honeymoon. 
So the landscape changed dramatically here with their loss. And with them went the owls, no longer to be heard and the bats that obviously roosted in them and relied on them as a food source also disappeared. Apart from their general decline I believe that the importance of the Elm to bats may have been missed. Following the loss of the Elms for some years you could count on seeing just one or two if you really looked for them. My garden backs onto allotments divided into two fields, as it was in 1953, by a hedgerow running South that is a continuation of the line of Elms I referred to above. It is a mix of mature Oaks Hawthorn etc. but I have not seen a bat for over two years now. 

And the Elms legacy. Well in what is now the central reservation of the dual carriageway you can still see the dips in the ground 30years on where the bowls were removed despite efforts to fill in, likewise with the big tree which has quite a pronounced dip. Elm suckers still form much of the park hedgerow the top end of the allotment divide and thrive quite healthily, seeding etc. Then what might be termed the fittest starts to look like a small tree, trunk about 4/6" in diameter and then I start to look for the tell tale yellowing and a year on it is dead and so the process has gone on since their larger ancestors demise!

Mike Hansford

When my parents and I moved back to Bristol from Kent in 1969 we settled at Almondsbury, just north of Bristol, where our garden backed onto a field and had several elms as part of the boundary hedge. We were dismayed when they succumbed to Dutch elm disease, and I wrote a poem in 1970 (aged 18), which I've written out for you. I also remember how the south Gloucestershire landscape changed dramatically in a few years as all the elms died off, and how upsettting it was at the time. Often we don't appreciate things till they've gone.

Linda Hall (Mrs)

Destruction

The elm tress which
Stood at the bottom of the garden
Started to turn
Yellow.
We thought this was part of
The normal process
Of nature
At the beginning of Autumn.
Too late
We discovered
This was nothing so natural
But that some
Disease
Was slowly destroying our elms.
And then,
To save others from
Certain death,
We had to become the
Destroyers, 
A role
Too often played by men,
And "mercy-kill" them.

(Only of course it didn't save the others unfortunately.)

I was born on a farm east of Hull in the Holderness district of East Yorkshire. We had several elm trees on the farm, some wonderful large trees and I believe some were Wytch Elms. One tree in particular stood outside the back door of the house and my brother, who is 11 years older than me had built a den half way up the tree. I used to look at this den when I was about 3/4 years old and it seemed to be about 300 feet up in the sky and I always longed to be able to climb upto it. By the time I was old enough to start playing outside and climbing trees, the den had turned into a ruin, but eventually I managed to figure out a way of climbing upto the den. I remember using the wonderful spindly knobbles on the tree truck to aid my ascent and being poked in the eye many times by the twiggy branches. When I was up there I was hidden by the leaves and I used to spend many happy hours up there just lookig out over the farm and chasing cateripllars in the leaves. My brother was born in 1950 and I was born in 1961 so the tree must have been a considerable size for him to have built the den by the time he was 8/9 years old. The tree must have been over 60 feet tall and was the outstanding feature outside the back door of the house. The Chook run was around the bottom of the tree and the girls used to scrat for worms and grubs. Our swing used to be under the tree and I can remember many a happy moment swingin up and pulling the leaves off the tree with our legs when we swung that high. When Dutch Elm disease started I remember other trees dying on the farm but my father said that this one, being a Wytch Elm, would not surrender to the disease,. How wrong he was. 
Our poor tree started to develop the horrible dead looking brances around the end of 1981 and by the end of 1982 it was nearly all dead except for a few scanty leaves at the end of some sorry looking branches. The final straw came in march 1983. I remember it well because I was taken ill with appendicitis and taken off to hospital. I was there for a month and when my mum came to visit me she told me that they had decided to take down the tree as it was so dead and was now a danger to the farmhouse. When I came out of hospital at the end of March 1983, the workers from the farm were just taking the last branches off and sawing through the truck. It was so sad to see the old tree go. The gap outside the back door of the house was huge and it never looked the same afterwards. The chooks enjoyed jumping on and off the stump.
Nowadays my nephew and his family (next generation of farmers) live in the farmhouse and the stump has been sprouting new twiggy growth for about the last 10 years. it will never be as grand as it was. What a shame. It was such a majestic tree
Another memory I have is of when we used to travel to Hull. There was one road in particular where there were elms at both sides of the road. This would have been in the late 60's early 70's again. When we drove along this part of the road it was like driving down a dark tunnel. The branches were so thick they met across the top of the road and it was totally dark down there. I remember being fascinated by this tunnel. There must have been over 30 trees in total with enormous trunks. How wonderful they must have looked. There is nothing there now at all, not even stumps. Another memory!

Anonymous

I was born and brought up in a very small Kentish village called Upper Stoke and like many other villages throughout Britain had distinctive Elm trees scattered here and there. These were lonely sentinels in an area only lightly wooded which was predominantly marsh, flat and open to the elements. 

We were lucky to have in our village a beautiful meadow which was used for recreational purposes i.e. cricket, football etc, and surrounding the meadow were these majestic trees. 

Having scoured the attic I have found a book of poems that I wrote in 1973 and one of these poems is below.
Also attached is a picture of the meadow.

Written on 3rd November, 1973 whilst sitting on a felled Elm amongst the debris.

As I sit upon this sad tree,
I think of how it used to be,
Tall, beautiful, majestic and still,
Looking, hoping, praying that it will
never fall upon the ground,
so be trodden on without a sound.

As the unmagical drill,
pierces the trunk I hear a shrill
of pain, annoyance from the Elm
Oh how sad it is no longer in its realm.

These ruthless men hurry,
they must get it over before the flurry
of snow, it lies dead
and as the tears roll down my face, 
I think of all the words I said,
how bleak and unfriendly
the countryside now looks,
I pick at the bark and mentally
picture how it once was,
"glorious", like a book.

Jill Warby