Rosa Lyster at Harper’s Magazine:
It is not clear how Carruthers and Graham imagined the public would respond. The tree was a beloved landmark, its silhouette an instantly recognizable symbol of England’s North East. As virtually every news report would go on to stress, it had also been featured in the 1991 movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. The two men must have anticipated that people in the area would be upset. It seems implausible, though, that they had in mind what actually ended up happening, which is that the felling of the Sycamore Gap tree made international news straightaway. It became one of the biggest stories in England, prompting a prolonged nationwide spasm of outrage and what sometimes looked like genuine grief.
It was as if there had been a cosmic violation. The lamentation went far beyond those with a personal link to the tree—everyone who had hiked there, or gotten engaged there, or scattered ashes there, or even seen it from their car as they drove by. People across the country spoke of slaughter, and compared its loss to that of a close family member, or to the death of Princess Diana.
more here.
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