A truly fitting tribute!

Keith Barker Photograph

Jim Grogan always wanted the woodland to be as beautiful as possible – not beautiful, because he loved beautiful things (although he did) but beautiful so that all of the community could enjoy it even more. As he drove his taxi around the area in the early spring, he kept an eye open for displays of snowdrops, so that he could go back once the flowers had died down and the plants were "in the green", to ask if he could have 'just a few' to go into Tarvin woodland. No one ever refused him. He and Sheila (and, latterly, the woodland volunteers) planted them and then split them again once the clumps had bulked up, so that there is now a wonderful display of snowdrops throughout the woodland each spring. Jim loved the snowdrops!

In the summer after Jim died, the Woodland Trustees erected a stone in his memory – in the middle of a circle of Beech trees that Jim had planted. (Some of the village children seem to think that Jim is buried there, but that is not the case.) To those of us who knew him, the stone has represented Jim's presence, keeping an eye on the woodland he loved so much.

Earlier this spring, Keith Barker (keen photographer of the woodland in all its stages) took some photographs of the snowdrops that subsequently appeared on TarvinOnLine. One of the photos was of Jim's stone – and there, at the base, you can see little clumps of snowdrops! I don't know who it was who planted them there – but Jim's heart would be gladdened! Snowdrops growing at the foot of Jim's memorial stone – what a fitting tribute!