It started when I saw two men fire up chain saws and begin dismembering an old tree on my street. Huge, gnarled and majestic, the tree was one of my favourites. Heartsick, I watched the men. Should I try and stop them? Would they listen or would I just end up getting myself arrested?  As a single parent, I didn’t have the option of going to jail.

My response was to write about it.

“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”

So said Mole in ‘The Wind in the Willows’. How right he was! There IS nothing like messing about in boats. But why? Why do we love them so?