I first fell in love when I was eight years old. It wasn’t really what the grown-ups called love. More like the secret joy of being with a friend who had touched my heart. And I only first recognised it for what it was the moment it was gone.

I woke one morning to hear the high-pitched whine of a chainsaw outside my bedroom window and looked out to see my favourite tree lying in a pile of sawdust in our garden. “I loved that tree so much,” I wailed, as my mother gave me a consoling hug.

But I was inconsolable. I had climbed that tree a hundred times to gaze out over the remote Cornish river valley where we lived. I had a favourite branch near the top, where I would sit and listen to the birds...