The Tree Climber’s Guide. Jack Cooke

mutual surprise – and I’d taken a subordinate perch – we began talking. This man was no great libertarian, no anarchist or antichrist. He was simply a lawyer on a lunch break having his sandwich in an ash tree. This choice, to eat at altitude above the packed square of the park, was not a radical one. To me this man was following the most natural inclination in the world – a desire for breathing space and a different point of view.

      London was built on a swamp, and it doesn’t take much height to achieve a good vantage point. But there are trees in the capital where, with little skill or strength but due care, the committed explorer can climb high above their surroundings. There is perhaps no feeling quite like sticking your head through the topmost branches of a tree, pushing through a pine canopy or reaching for the last bunch of oak leaves. You emerge from a dense network of branches below to an open sky and boundless views stretching away on every side. Beneath, filtered through summer green or the bare branches of winter, are the passing crowns of people’s heads: blonde, brunette, bald. The ground is flat and clean, and the world about is round.

      It is these living lookouts – and the thousands of new views of the city they provide, open and free to all – that are at the heart of this book. Office blocks shimmer through the fronds of a cedar, skyscrapers loom above a green crown and the long lines of tenements dwindle into the distance.

      Trees deliver us from the banal, and reaching the top of one is like coming up for air and breaking the bubble of our timetabled lives. Their physical complexity, together with the courage needed to climb them, liberates thought and offers a wealth of natural knowledge. The treeline acts as a defence against the darker parts of urban living and the canopy is an inviolate place, a still room for reflection amid the constant rush of city life.

      There is nothing better for seeing the world more clearly than removing yourself a little distance from it. So the next time the city overwhelms you, when you feel hemmed in or shut out, remember to look up. Escape is at hand, reprieve is at foot; you are never far from ascension.