No, we weren't ’messing around’. Don’t treat me like an idiot. You might be a policewoman but you're younger than my granddaughter.
Lammas Eve is an important night in this village. Used to be that everyone came out, not just a few old fogies. Lately, it’s just me, Young Pete, and Bobby Jackson doing the rounds. I guess that means there’s just two of us now.
She lives in New Zealand. Says she won't come back to the village. Says she's seen too much here.
You’ve never heard of the Apple Tree Man? That’s the thing, you see. Too many people have been forced to move out of the village, because they can’t afford to live here. Too many people coming down from London, it takes the soul out of a place like this.
Used to be the whole village would be out on Lammas Eve, and the ones too old to walk would make up the Apple Tree Man’s dust.
Ground up animal bones and apple seeds - it needs to be placed around the edge of the village to keep everyone safe.
From the Apple Tree Man, of course. I’m not going to tell you the stories. Do you live round here? Where? Whicker’s Lane? Well, I knew Whicker. He once gave me a hiding for scrumping.
They should have closed the road for our procession. It’s not my fault. No, of course we’re not going to wear reflective clothes. You need to wear dark clothes so that he can’t see you. Maybe if you lot did your job, stopped people driving so fast round here, Bobby Jackson would still be alive.
You collect the bones over the course of the year. Sheep’s bones and the like. Dry them out, then grind them into dust.
Oh course I've not seen the Apple Tree Man. It’s a story, isn’t it?
Young Pete’s now in his late sixties. Soon enough there won’t be anyone who cares to do the ceremony. The best way to make the dust is to add a little blood in there. No, not people - he’s not that fussy, a few drops from the Sunday roast before Lammas Eve, that’s enough.
I don’t care if you’ve ‘googled it’. You can’t find everything on a bloody computer. That’s the problem with lasses like you. Yes, I said lass, I meant to say lass. Young people, they only see something if it’s on a screen. Well, there’s things you can’t find in a phone. Just because nobody put the Apple Tree Man in your Internet doesn’t mean it’s not real. You’ve got plenty missing from that, believe you me.
My daughter, she’s a little older than you, but she lives in New Zealand now. Doesn’t like it in the village. It’s not like she could get much further away. You know, when it’s Lammas eve here, the middle of August, it’s winter for her. That always turns my head.
Once upon a time, the whole village would be out there, we’d scatter the dust in every corner of the village. There was one year they didn’t because of the war - before I was born. And that’s when Lucy Whicker’s little girl was lost.
I’ve tried telling the new folk they need to do this too. But they won’t listen to me. I can hear them snickering after I tell them. They don’t even do me the courtesy of hiding it.
I’ll be out there next year. It will be just me and young Pete, but we’ll do it. I’ll keep going until I can’t walk, and the Apple Tree Man will come for me.
Of course it’s not just a story. I’ve seen him in the apple trees. You know, the big orchards? I shouldn’t have been there, but it was a dare, and I was young. I ran all the way home, and swore I’d be there every year to spread the dust and keep him out of the village.
It’s not me that you should be spending time with, or even the bloke that drove that car. No, you should be in the orchards, learning about what’s there. Then there’d be no need for us to be the ones tramping the roads at night. But that’s too much to ask.
It’s a tragedy, what happened to Bobby. But we’ll add his ashes to the dust next year, you can be sure of that.
Background
This is the first story I’ve shared about the Apple Tree Man, a creature of bone and bark who, in my stories, haunts the villages of Sussex. The Apple Tree Man is the name of a west-country tradition, referring to the oldest tree in an orchard. The spirit I’m referring to is one I’ve made up from various elements, including bodies being surreptitiously buried in an orchard. I’ll be writing more of these stories in the new year.
Recommendations
I’m not sure how I first came to meet Ben Graham, but it was most likely through poetry in Brighton. For many years, Ben has run the monthly Horseplay night with Verity Spott. But I heard of him years before that when he appeared in the Disco Biscuits anthology, which I read in the 90s. The sort of people collected in anthologies were amazing to me back then (and still are, I’ve come nowhere close to that). The 90’s me would be impressed that I now know one of the writers from that book.
Ben is a fantastic poet, and I love his long piece ‘For Everyone’. He recently wrote a book on the 50th anniversary of the Crumlin festival Pink Floyd are fogbound in Paris, which is an entertaining story of a festival gone wrong. His shop also sells his novel Amorphous Albion which is the sort of pulp Discordian novel that the world needs more of.
Ben is also one of the ‘veering committee’ for Festival 23, a group that has significantly changed my life. He was also one of the people on the Cerne2CERN pilgrimage in 2019 and wrote an excellent account of the escapade, From Cerne to CERN, A Pilgrim’s Tale.
Ben also has a substack email, The Urban Spaceman, and it’s one of my favourites. He’s also working on a novel, of which I’ve read the first section and its one of my most eagerly awaited books of 2024.
Another enjoyable story that can be read in less than ten minutes (meaning it can be read in a parked car, a launderette, anywhere). I'm currently reading "If on a winter's night a traveller" by Italo Calvino (1980). I think you'd enjoy it's playfulness and it's exploration of the desire of the reader in reading fiction. It's very funny in places too. Thanks for the story!