As a young boy growing up in Lochee, Dundee from the 50s into the 60s, I’d use any excuse to leave my dysfunctional family home, a second floor Victorian tenement with a shared toilet on the landing.
I’d go anywhere, walks into the city and look at the shops, on the street and play football with mates, up onto the Law (a local high point that overlooks Dundee) and watch the old men working their allotments, or more than often I’d go to a local park and run and run and run until I was totally exhausted.
I knew nothing back then about how my body and my mind works. I found it exhilarating to sprint getting faster with every attempt…not knowing of course that given my hatred for home, this was good for body and mindset purely from a scientific and medical perspective. All the chemicals in my body were working in harmony to make me feel good…and good I certainly felt.
I would start my run from a tree that was about 20ft high with a distinctive shape of leaves. As the first year of doing this wore on, I’d see the tree change from white flowers in spring to red berries later in the year.
One afternoon after sprinting from this tree for a few years now, I was sat under it on a hot summer’s day. Exhausted and sweaty an old man came along and asked me if I was OK, and what was I doing? I told him that I liked sprinting, and that I’d begin my sprints from the tree, and sit and rest under the tree when I was finished. I’d run in all seasons through the year, and in all weathers too
He asked me if I knew what the tree was? I said that I had no idea.
He asked me if I liked the tree and if I liked sitting under it?
I said yes to both, I said that I liked seeing the tree when it had it’s bright red berries on.
He said that the tree was special and had special powers. He said that there’s a reason that I felt good sitting under it. Actually at the time of telling me that, I was feeling like I wanted to throw up with all the sprinting I’d just done on that particularly hot day for Dundee.
Why’s it special I asked?
He told me that it’s called a Rowan, and the tree grows wild in the highlands of Scotland. He said that it would have been planted here probably for the way that it looks. He went on to say that folklore would explain that the tree has special powers to protect people, and that when he was a wee boy, old people would plant the tree next to their cottages in the country side to feel safe. And long long ago, people did the same to ward off evil.
Wow, I looked up into the tree, the shape of the leaves would never leave me, and wherever I went, I would spot a Rowan tree growing.
“You take it easy now son, it’s a hot one today, but dinnae worry…the Rowan will look after you.” The last words the old man spoke to me, and off he went continuing his walk.
So just maybe, the feel good factor wasn’t just coming from my sprinting. It may well have been that sitting under the Rowan (my guardian) was not only making me feel great, but it was protecting me from the home life that I was living at that time too.
Bob Shepherd 