When we approached St Mary's church in Edwinstowe in Nottinghamshire (just down the road from Sherwood forest) we didn't realise how appropriate it would be. The church is called St Mary's which is the same name as the church in Harmondsworth where Richard Cox, who bred the famous Cox's Orange Pippin, is buried. So, as I said to the lovely Alistair Littlewood, the Vicar of St Mary's we are twinning Edwinstowe doubly - through the church names and with the airplot campaign. As we walked to the spot where the tree was to be planted we joked about finding buried treasure. Then Alistair said he had to be with us as we dug the hole just in case we found any bones! He explained that up until fairly recently many children were buried in unmarked graves as they were not considered important enough to have headstones and that no more burials were allowed in the churchyard just in case an unmarked grave was found. So when the first stroke of the spade struck something very hard we all looked at each other slightly worried. Luckily it was just one of many very large stones!
There has been a church here since 633AD and the present church is nearly 900 years old. In 2008 the village was chosen to launch the Growing Greener Churches campaign of the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham. Alistair was very pleased to help and said "We are delighted to be welcoming Paddy Tipping and Greenpeace to plant this tree in our churchyard. God challenges us to look after his creation and we want to show that we take that serioulsy." He went on to say "We should not assume that transport neworks can grow unchecked and twinning this new tree with one in the Heathrow area is a great idea." Paddy Tipping the local MP came along to help plant the tree and was very disappointed to discover that we had already done all the hard work in digging the hole and all he had to do was hold a shovel for the press picture. He insisted on continuing filling the hole once all the press phots were taken and as you can see he got well stuck in!
Paddy is retiring at the next election through ill health. He has promised to keep supporting our work and says he will be doing more environmental work himself. We think he should first of all have a good rest and enjoy being a grandfather.
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