Me dad planted that tree,’ she said absently, pointing out through the old cracked window. The great beech filled at least half the sky and shook shadows all over the house. Its roots clutched the slope like a giant hand, holding the hill in place. Its trunk writhed with power, threw off veils of green dust, rose towering into the air, branched into a thousand shaded alleys, became a city for owls and squirrels. I had thought such trees to be as old as the earth, I never dreamed that a man could make them. Yet it was Granny Trill’s dad who had planted this tree, had thrust in the seed with his finger. How old must he have been to leave such a mark? Think of Granny’s age, and add his on top, and you were back at the beginning of the world.

S. Early life and works
Having been born in Stroud Lee moved with his family to the village of Slad in 1917 the move with which Cider with Rosie opens. Works
Books
Land at War (1945)
An Obstinate Exile (1951)
A Rose for Winter: Travels in Andalusia (1955)
Man Must Move: The Story of Transport (with David Lambert) (1960); publiLaurie Leed in the U.

Laurence Edward Alan "Laurie" Lee MBE (26 June 1914 – 13 May 1997) was an English poet novelist and screenwriter raised in the village of Slad and went to Marling School Gloucestershire. The first volume recounts his childhood in the Slad Valley. The second deals with his leaving home for London and his first visit to Spain in 1935 and the third with his return to Spain in December 1937 to join the Republican International Brigades.