This is the Guardian.

Today, what the reaction to the felling of a tree tells us about the country morning it.

A very close friend of mine sent me a text message saying, your trees come down and my first thought was,

what, I'm going to treat my garden? How is my tree come down? And she sent me a screenshot image and I was like,

nah, that's a horrible disgusting hoax, really good CGI with disgusting hoax. I sent the screenshot

of a husband saying, look at this disgusting prank. And then he said, no check the news.

Robin Vinter, the Guardian's north of England correspondent,

a files a quick take while she's still on the train on the way to work. Just a short piece,

that the nearly 300-year-old Sikimor Gap tree has been found cut down. But already, by the time she's

in the office and more people are finding out about the news, it's clear that something is about to

erupt. By the time I'd got to Manchester, I'd failed the story and had gone online. It started to

dawn on me that this was going to be quite a big story. People have had their ashes scattered here.

People have proposed here. I'm normally pretty much a sort of guy, but this has made me incredibly

angry. Well, I hope whoever's done that has a conscience because you've just murdered a

sentinel of time and elemental spirit of Northumberland. And I said, I think someone's going to

have to go to Northumberland. As Robin makes her way to the spot near Hadrian's war with a tree stood,

about 20 minutes drive from a town called Hexham. The people she's meeting on the way,

they all have a story. Complete strangers around her. They all want to talk about the tree.

One of the people I spoke to about the tree was someone who had engaged there and it was

obviously such a meaningful place to her. She would be bringing her children in the years following

and, you know, just describing it absolutely for lawn, like completely heartbroken by it.

At the site in the Northumberland National Park, the police are there investigating,

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