The felled tree that devastated Britain
It was just a tree, a beautiful tree, in a strikingly beautiful place. Yet when the two friends Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers were convicted of felling a much-loved sycamore on Hadrian’s Wall in September 2023, they were sentenced to four years and three months in prison. You can get less for rape. Andrew Hankinson is best known for his book about the murderer Raoul Moat, written entirely in the second person, a device that can be wearisome. In Felled, he reserves the second person for when he writes about himself. By page 11, he is describing his father’s death. After a few chapters, I made a note: ‘Part of me thinks I’d get on with Hankinson and part of me wants to shake him.
