We Interview Norwegian Woodman Lars Mytting
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No.39 Spring 2016 £5.00 Magazine Rescuing London’s Fallen Trees Would You Give Your Child an Axe? We Interview Norwegian Woodman Lars Mytting Plus: Wood Fairs, Pods, Chainsaws and Floods LIVING WOODS Contents 18 27 11 2 News Editor’s comment 4 Norwegian Woodman This is the first issue of Living Woods under my Lars Mytting tells Nancy Wood about tools, wood and life editorship, and I can report that there’s a new 11 Why You Should Give Your Child an Axe mood afoot in Britain. Every person to whom (and how to do it safely) I have mentioned the magazine and its readers has responded with real excitement. Even crusty James Kendall teaches children to face risk with confidence urbanites want to share their plans to learn to 14 Capital Cuts use a chainsaw, install a wood fuel stove, take part in tree-planting efforts. Of course, readers Jeff Segal and partners rescue London’s fallen trees of this magazine know that woodlands are more 18 New Life in the Heart of the Forest than just trees, but add to this mood growing Tom Richards discovers peace at Tortworth Arboretum numbers of community woodlands, the creative 22 Transforming Woodland Volunteers activities of off-grid ‘new wood culture’ carvers and calls in Parliament for the planting of 200m Bec Cork’s volunteer programme makes a difference trees and, well, it starts to add up to something 24 Flood Plans already established and growing steadily. So it’s a privilege to have been given the Natural Flood Risk Management gains ground editorship of Living Woods at this time, and to 27 After the Deluge go forward with the vision of its founder Nick What’s next for your flooded woodland? Gibbs. We’re now a quarterly magazine with a 28 Glorious Trees new design. From the revealing interview with Lars Mytting to the last page, I hope you enjoy Photographer Tim Graham has a passion this issue of Living Woods. Let us know what 32 Chainsaw Care Checklist you think. Nancy Wood Stuart Brooking offers guidance for safe sawing Editor Cover photograph 36 Leafy Shoots [email protected] by Robert Wilson Judith Millidge’s woodland hosts a music video film crew 40 From Log to moduLog Advertising Interested in advertising in Living Woods? Jacob Mooney on a stylish and profitable family woodland Please contact Rob de la Poer, [email protected] project Subscriptions 44 Book Review: Not Just for Woodies £20 for four issues (one year UK), £30 for four issues (one year Angus Hanton on Norwegian Wood foreign) www.livingwoodsmagazine.co.uk/subscribe 46 Home Alone Printing Nick Gibbs reports from Le Shack Printed by The Manson Group 47 Wood Fairs and Events 48 Into the Woods Published by Living Woods Magazine Ltd, 19 Half Moon Lane, London, SE24 9JU Woodlands were a door to adventure for Angus Hanton 1 NEWS NEWS Grants, Tickets, Events, Spoons, Music The Real Wood Bible Updated Grant Applications Now Forest Live Concerts Booking Open Charter for Trees, Woods and and forgotten and yet they provide and inspiration to shape government so much – timber, protection from policy; and will seek to enlist Charter The Countryside Stewardship’s woodland Forest Live has a brilliant lineup of show- People 2017 pollution, wildlife sanctuaries and Champions who will inspire and rally creation grant application system is stopping musicians for this year’s concerts. In 1217, just two years after his father simply as places to unwind and relax. friends and communities to stand now open. If you are a farmer or other Now in its sixteenth season, Forest Live had grudgingly signed Magna Carta, the The 21st century charter will be up for trees and woodland. The land manager, you may apply for a two concerts combine unforgettable gigs with young Henry III signed the Charter of the rooted in individuals’ stories and campaign was launched in London in year works grant to plant and protect unique atmosphere in seven stunning forest Forest that restored the rights of freemen memories; it will provide guidance January. young trees, with a possible ten year locations. Events start on 17 June and run to forage, gather wood and graze their n supporting grant. But act quickly, as the through 10 July. www.forestry.gov.uk/music livestock in the royal forests. deadline is 31 March and applicants must or 03000 680 400. To commemorate this anniversary, the Visit the website www.treecharter.uk to learn more and join in. – Judith Millidge request a map from Natural England by Woodland Trust is leading more than 24 March. Search ‘woodland creation International Day of Forests 45 organisations in calling for a new grant’ on www.gov.uk. 21 March 2016 forest charter for the 21st century. Their message is a simple one: we need to Spoonfest Ticket Sales The United Nations is sponsoring an act now before it’s too late to celebrate International Day of Forests on Monday, 21 and secure the future our trees and Mark your diary. Tickets for Spoonfest, the March to raise awareness around the globe of woodland. Our country’s woods and trees international celebration of the carved the importance of forests and trees. While are facing unprecedented pressures from wooden spoon, go on sale Saturday, 9 deforestation continues apace across the development, disease and climate change. April, at 11am. Last year, tickets for the planet, 1.6 billion people continue to depend They risk being neglected, undervalued Announcing the re-issue of an essential main event sold out in days. There’s on ever-shrinking forests for their livelihood. reference for the workshop, The Real nothing like Spoonfest anywhere, a UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon writes, Wood Bible by Nick Gibbs, founder of gathering of the top spooncarvers ‘We must invest in our world’s forests.’ If you this magazine. In three hundred colour in the world teaching a myriad of would like to create your own event, view the photographs, an A to Z of wood specimens courses. There’s camping, campfires and special event webcast from UN Headquarters, SAWMILL + DEALER INQUIRIES is pictured finished and unfinished and in unrepeatable atmosphere. 5 – 7 August, tweet in support or simply find out more, go cross section with Nick’s expert notes on Prefest courses 2 – 4 August, at Edale, to www.un.org/en/events/forestsday/. WWW.TIMBERY.EU characteristics, strengths and weaknesses. Hope Valley, Derbyshire. spoonfest.co.uk The revised edition gives sustainability Europe-wide ‘My Project’ status of each wood – crucial information Community Woodland Events in Results Stunning for woodworkers. Firefly publishers, £14.95, Wales paperback, from 23 May. Llais Y Goedwig, the community woodland Biochar: New Ash Dieback Hope network for Wales, is hosting key networking events on 19 March in South A private lab, Bartlett Tree Experts, in Wales and 9 April in North Wales, followed partnership with the University of Reading, by the Community Woodland National HOT has announced a new area of research that Gathering on 26 and 27 May. Click on News may offer gleam of hope in fighting chalara: & Events at llaisygoedwig.org.uk. PRICE biochar. Over the next six years, a study will look into the benefits of airspading Three Month Free Trial at UK £2,700 purified charcoal, biochar, into the soil Rural Skills around mature ash trees and measuring the Our friends at Wood-Mizer are happy effects. So far, six ash saplings treated with Are you a rural skills training provider, to announce the winners of their first biochar have resisted ash dieback for three instructor or employer? You may be Europe-wide ‘My Project’ competition. The years, though surrounded by trees infected interested to hear about not-for-profit forty entries from eleven countries were with the highly contagious disease. Dr UK Rural Skills (UKRS), a new training naturally created from wood processed Glynn Percival, head plant physiologist accreditation scheme to aid training on Wood-Mizer sawmills. We defy you at the Bartlett Tree Research Laboratory, providers deliver courses to accredited to resist La Solane, the first prize winner says, ‘A magic bullet does not exist’ but he levels. If you’d like to take up a three- in the Buildings category, cut on an LT40 believes that ‘using enriched biochar could month free trial membership, go to mill. This enchanting, rustic treehouse with help improve the survival prospects for the www.ukruralskills.co.uk, then let us balcony is sited in the eastern Pyrenees. www. UK’s ash trees.’ We await results. know what you think. woodmizer-europe.com then look for ‘news’. 2 LIVING WOODS Magazine LIVINGWOODSMAGAZINE.CO.UK LIVINGWOODSMAGAZINE.CO.UK LIVING WOODS Magazine 3 INTERVIEW Norwegian Woodman Lars Mytting, author of Norwegian Wood, talks about handmade tools, obsession, and the rewards of being the provider, by Nancy Wood Photographs: Robert Wilson 4 LIVING WOODS Magazine LIVINGWOODSMAGAZINE.CO.UK LIVINGWOODSMAGAZINE.CO.UK LIVING WOODS Magazine 5 INTERVIEW ars Mytting is the kind of man you’d be glad to L spend an evening with, perhaps with beer in hand, settled in by the woodstove. Conversation would progress from practical matters of tools and weather to more personal thoughts, the sort of stuff that tends to surface only in front of a good fire. Since his best-selling book, Norwegian Wood, Chopping, Stacking and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way, was published in Norway in 2011 and translated into ten languages last year, hundreds of thousands of readers have spent a few captivating hours with Mytting. A fiction-writer and journalist by trade, Mytting was originally asked by his publisher to produce a photographic book about the most obsessive woodpile-makers in Norway.