HS2 and Me – December 2020

Rennie Grove Memorial Wood
I have a dilemma.

I love things wooden and I love trees – always have done. So about 14 years ago when I heard that Iain Rennie Hospice at Home (now Rennie Grove) had this money raising idea I was interested. It was the beginning of a lovely relationship that has endured since. The idea was to create a small woodland which was funded by donations while at the same time providing a Remembrance Woodland for people to go to meditate and remember loved family members and friends who had passed away. At that time there had been quite a flurry of deaths close to me and it was taking me a seriously long time to recover from the difficulties that this had caused. One was a suicide, one was a hospital error and one was old age. It was therefore important to me that I could go somewhere to remember the good times and come to terms with it all.

It took about 5 years to fund and plant the Wood – on land owned by the well known local farming Getley family. The Chilterns 3 Peaks Challenge was becoming an important part of the Iain Rennie Fundraising calendar. I volunteered to be a marshal at a gate at the top of the field that was next to the field that the woodland was in. The view epitomised to me the beauty of the Chilterns and it was my favourite spot where I could muse or I could have friendly banter with walkers on the 3 Peaks Challenge. I also operated the dog gate and let through hundreds of dogs at a time.

Move on a few years and the dreaded spectre of HS2 arrived. Hence my dilemma! I love railways – they allow you to see the countryside as the train passes through. They get you to places. However, HS2 is fast (too fast, some might say) ripping up what’s left of the countryside.

It’s expensive, it’s noisy, it’s ugly and there will be enough capacity on the existing network especially during and after COVID-19. The only people who want it seem to either be those with self interest or the odd few in the North who feel that it will help the Northern economy recover. At the very least Wendover wants the train to go through a mined tunnel – a very reasonable request it seems to me and one that makes complete sense.

In October HS2 announced they were taking possession of the Memorial Woodland so I ventured out with my saw and rescued the Memorial plaque that told visitors what the woodland was all about. My mother was a vociferous campaigner against the junction of the M23/M25 in Surrey. Her haunts in her younger days were all round the Chipstead Valley. That valley no longer exists in name, as it is buried under tonnes and tonnes of concrete. As a keen and budding ornithologist and botanist she was appalled at the destruction of the environment. I remember when the Newbury bypass was being built and she admitted to being quite envious of Swampy and the waves he made when he lived in the trees in his attempt to prevent the bypass being built. One of the trees in the RGHC Woodland was in memory of my mother who was taken from us in 1993. She would be with me writing this article on the destruction that HS2 is causing – not just in Wendover – but right along the line.

In conclusion, I really hope the plaque can be resited in Wendover, at a place where people can go and remember loved ones; in a place that is not too far from the route of the 3 Peaks walk. At least HS2 will not be taking away the stile and dog gate – although they have already wrecked the view.
Bob Duggan