The winner of the Olive Clarke Challenge 2025/2026 was Marion Drinkwater from Bolton WI. Many congratulations to Marion for her winning entry. Make sure you read right to the end of her piece – where all will be revealed!
I was born when a small winged seed was dropped by a passing bird onto a patch of scrubby grass beside a wall. Warmed by the sun and softened by the rain the seed gradually split and a tender, seemingly frail, filament emerged and began, blindly, to probe a path downwards through the earth. My first root! At the same time a pale stem pushed upwards through the grass into the light and slowly my first delicate leaves appeared. Year after year that frail stem grew taller and stronger and, year after year, my roots travelled further and wider through the earth mirroring and nourishing the upward growth. The tiny stem became my sturdy trunk, firm and unbending, supporting my leafy, branched, canopy through sunny days and winter storms. In Autumn my fallen leaves fell like rain carpeting the ground beneath and, in time, became earth. All winter I awaited the return of warmth and the time when my bare branches would bear once again the weight of new, tender, green leaves bringing shade and shelter. I was nourished by rain and sun but supported by my roots which spread ever further and wider beneath me ever probing and expanding. As I grew taller and older I sheltered lovers and those who fought, tired walkers and sturdy marchers, children and old people in my shade. In my youth I was visited by men in tall hats and black coats and ladies in sweeping skirts and in my maturity by girls and young men in shorts with packs on their backs. With my roots beneath me and the sky above I was, surely, invulnerable.
But…
One dark night I felt something pressing into my trunk, vibrating and cutting through my precious rings. Rings that had grown and marked every year of my life. The jarring and juddering continued until I felt my branches cascading to the ground in a green torrent of leaves and my trunk was cruelly severed. Instead of thrusting proudly into the sky I lay broken over the protecting wall and across the stony ground. Â I could no longer feel the wind rustling my leaves and swaying my outspread branches. There was no longer any shelter for birds or people. All that was left was a broken stump with its precious rings exposed to the light for the first time.
But again…
My roots were still there, still thrusting blindly through the earth and still sending nourishment upwards and new, tender shoots have appeared.
I was the sycamore at the gap named after me and, in time, I will be there again.
