Waterstones Truro welcomes author-conservationist Merlin Hanbury-Tenison to discuss his new book Our Oaken Bones: Reviving a Family, a Farm and Britain’s Ancient Rainforests on Monday at 7pm.
The son of explorer Robin Hanbury-Tenison, Merlin grew up at Cabilla, the family farm near Colliford Lake on Bodmin Moor. After serving eight years in the British Army, he spent eight more working in the city, witnessing the increasing levels of stress and anxiety caused by urban living.
Reeling from the pain of devastating miscarriages and suffering from PTSD after military adventures in Afghanistan, Merlin, his entrepreneur wife Lizzie and their two young daughters left the bustle of London and returned to Cabilla for good.
However, they were met by unexpected challenges: a farm in debt; the sudden and near catastrophic strickening by Covid of Merlin’s father; and the discovery that the overgrazed and damaged woods running throughout the valley are in fact one of the UK’s last remaining fragments of Atlantic temperate rainforest.
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As they fall ever deeper in love with the surroundings Merlin had adventured in as a child, the family begins a fight to save themselves, their farm and one of the world’s most endangered habitats.
Merlin would go on to transform Cabilla into a wellness centre, where customers get their hands dirty helping to preserve and expand the ancient temperate rainforest before feeling its benefits through sound baths and woodland sauna sessions.
He also founded The Thousand Year Trust, a rainforest charity with a mission to triple Britain’s rainforest cover to one million acres in the next 30 years.
The Waterstones talk will be followed by a Q&A and a book signing session. For further details, call 01872 225765.
Our Oaken Bones: Reviving a Family, a Farm and Britain’s Ancient Rainforests is published by Witness Books on Thursday, March 20 in hardback, ebook and audio, RRP £22.