Sir, As you will remember the ancient Oak tree at Oak Crescent Wyesham collapsed on Monmouthshire Show day three years ago and the Beacon headline was 'End of an era'. I would just like to let you know that the tree has survived and is flourishing once more (I hate to say I told you so). The tree collapsed due to rot at the branch union with the trunk but the new growth will not be affected by the rot due to a process called compartmentalisation which is part of a tree's defence against disease. Hopefully, with the correct management, the tree will continue to thrive for another hundred or more years and give pleasure to future generations. Since the birth of this oak tree, history has recorded: Ghengis Khan led the Mongolian armies, the Crusades to the Holy Land, the Magna Carta was signed by King John, gunpowder was invented, African slaves were first documented, Lord Nelson won the battle of Agincourt, Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland, slavery abolished, Sir Isaac Newton discovered the laws of motion and gravity, Napolean was defeated at Waterloo, the First World War and Second World War happened and man first set foot on the moon, to name a few. Steve Wadley (AVA Ecology Ltd)