Sunday Feature: New Generation Thinkers: Sloe Time

Lockdown encourages us to keep local, but for many this has been rewarded with a new take on the close-by, the ordinary, in the natural world (even as nature is wreaking havoc) - such as the humble blackthorn. New Generation Thinker Dr Lisa Mullen is fascinated by the beauty, cruelty and danger inherent in the blackthorn - flowers, spikes and fruit - the sloes whose alien green flesh dries the mouth, but combines with gin to make the perfect winter drink. Not a `charismatic mega-fauna", like the Giant Redwood, blacthorns dense, strong, dark wood, rippling with veins of toffee, plays an important role in holding our countryside together; dividing fields, feeding us and delighting in being one of the first to blossom in spring. `A dense thicket, bristling with spines - you realise why blackthorn was used defensively as a dead hedge by the Saxon's, the true precursor of barbed wire." - Roger Deakin. Blackthorn's physical characteristics make it a popular baddie - folklore depicts it as dangerous as well as useful. Robert McFarlane, a passionate advocate for nature, even describes the blackthorn as `the widow maker" - for its easily infected wounds. Reliving childhood adventures in the Chilterns, pretending to be the princess in the thorny bush, Lisa recalls dangerous, warning stabs from the blackthorns' cruel spikes. She talks to Samuel Robinson, coppicer and woodsman, who knows the blackthorn better than most. For Lisa, he sings a beautiful song about the blackthorn winter, the false spring, his dog's violent encounter with a deer, and his own confrontation with death