Where the wych elm grows

Fifty years after his death, Jenny Bardwell reflects on the life of Howards End author and King’s College Honorary Fellow E. M. Forster

- Jenny Bardwell

A SMALL boy stood beside a large, overhanging tree in a Hertfordshire garden in the 1880s. According to folklore, if pigs’ teeth were found in a tree’s trunk, chewing a small piece of its bark could cure toothache. This wych elm, with its few embedded teeth, held a deep fascination for the young boy as he played in the grounds of his home.

The lad grew into the novelist E. M. Forster (Morgan to his friends), who died 50 years ago this month. The wych elm was in the grounds of Rooksnest, where Forster lived for 10 impressionable years. Fans of Howards End will know that the tree carries a mystical weight, just like the character Mrs Wilcox, who was born in the fictional house. The eagle-eyed might even have noticed that it was changed to a chestnut tree for the film starring Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins.

Forster’s six published novels, from Where Angels Fear to Tread to A Passage to India, are still popular today for their social comedy and portrayal of emotional entanglements against the scenic backdrops of Italy, Cambridge, India and the Home Counties. Howards End, published in 1910, put a little district of Hertfordshire firmly on the literary map.

Edward Morgan Forster was born in 1879 and barely knew his architect father, who died from tuberculosis before Morgan was two.