The Walnut Tree

A boy climbing in an historic walnut tree fell and died. The tree was 250 years old and was seeded in the reign of King George 3rd of England. The boy's psychic mother deduces that if the tree hadn't grown the child would never have climbed to his death and her spiritual advisers grant her the option of travelling back through time to abort the embryo of the beautiful Walnut Tree thus enabling her to be reunited with her son whose twin brother still lives. This task she delegates to a British air ace who in his Supermarine Spitfire has become lost in time whilst combating the might of Adolph Hitler's Luftwaffe. At 52,000 feet and dicing always with danger Squadron Leader Bob Gardener is facing the challenge of his lifetime. Ice cold conditions for which his Supermarine Spitfire was never designed eat at his extremities as he puts the nose of his aircraft down and powers at full throttle into a cloud bank that for him holds the secret of the sound barrier. Is he fated to be the first to cross that frontier as the Battle of Britain and World War 2 rage below? Others in his squadron had tried and failed, never to return, but Bob Gardener is on the threshold of a dynamic discovery and has never flinched from a challenge. As an ace Battle of Britain pilot he is prepared for most things, but no one could predict what awaits him when he brings his aircraft to earth in the green paddock of a hop farm sixty years into the future. Huge drama evolves as Bob exists in a time warp and is swept up in a wave of ethereal voyaging that buffets him through centuries to the early 18th century. Continuing to be trapped in time Bob is confronted with the savagery of the Hawkhurst Gang as they claim Kent and Southern England as their own. Bob's advanced 20th century learning enables him to prosper in a primitive society and his pugilistic skills earn him a fat purse which he uses to purchase Trillinghurst Farm, a bountiful acreage which he converts into a hop farm. Squire Bob Gardener is now completely lost in time. Does he want to be found? And what of his original mission to abort the lush seed of an historic Walnut Tree to satisfy the maternal cravings of a woman waiting in the twentieth century? Time will tell.