THE old dead ash tree at top of Harcombe Valley fell down last weekend.

Not during a raging Cotswold storm, as we'd expected, but on the coldest, calmest night of the year.

Nice, really, that it fell of its own accord, instead of being uprooted by the elements.

It was a nostalgic moment for Malcolm. As a small boy looking for birds' eggs (only one egg, mind) before such activities became none-pc, this was his favourite tree to climb.

Once he got stuck in the fork of the main branches and sent his pal, Roy, to get a rope. On his way Roy met Old Dick, a retired farm worker who lived at Harcombe. "I shouldn't bother with the rope," said Dick, who wasn't too keen on the exhuberant Malcolm, "He'll be down before you get back to him." And he was.

The tree was alive then but in the last few years it was leafless, its bare limbs gaunt against the sky.

It was far from lifeless, however, because countless creatures made their homes in its hollow trunk and branches.

Hawks at the top, then jackdaws, then woodpeckers and sometimes squirrels as well - a veritable high-rise of wildlife, not to mention all the grubs and insects that fed the tree-dwellers.

When the predators had gone hunting, pigeons and pheasants and the occasional songbird would come and perch on its branches. It was a welcoming sort of tree.

Thank goodness it fell in the autumn when its inhabitants had left their nests and we're very much hoping they will return to nest again.

Because we've decided, when we've tidied up the broken limbs, to leave the main tree, with its deep holes and hollow branches, as a wildlife sanctuary.

The view won't be as great but it will still provide a safe habitat for all those creatures whose address has long been The Ash Tree, Harcombe Valley, Syde, GL53 9PN.