Fourteen years ago, to commemorate and celebrate the birth of my beautiful granddaughter, I picked up a few acorns from a local tree and popped them into a flowerpot thinking “they won’t grow”. Miracles do happen though and three germinated.

They continued to grow until they filled the one pot and so I transferred them to individual pots, and then into a flower bed at the bottom of the garden, thinking “they won’t grow” – and yes, they grew.

They were beginning to outgrow our garden and so, with the centenary of the start of the Great War in mind, the three saplings were offered to the Friends of Biss Meadow, but they could not take them. Sharl Adabashi from the Friends of Trowbridge Park became very interested and decided he would like to plant them in the park.

So on Saturday, Sharl, his son and my husband spent a very wet and muddy few hours in our garden, digging the little trees out, transporting them down to the park and then planting them in the cleared area between Raleigh Court and the footpath that leads up to Polebarn Road.

All was going well until two residents of Raleigh Court came in and began to voice their extreme displeasure at the planting, saying that the shelter that the trees provided would “encourage the drug takers and prostitutes back to that area”. Although it was pointed out that the trees were babies and would take many years to grow (if they survived the move at all) the residents declared that they would organise a petition, write to everyone concerned and do their best to have the trees removed and, if all else failed, they would take steps to destroy the trees themselves.

It would be such a pity if these elderly residents of Trowbridge were to forget that the park is for the pleasure of the population of Trowbridge and decided to join the ranks of those who use public parks for unpleasant and/or criminal purposes. I am afraid that I shall be reluctant to use that particular footpath from now on for fear of what I may see has happened to our dear little trees.

Phyllis Prior (Mrs), Ashton Street, Trowbridge.