In theory we’re supposed to have an Allotted Twig. In practice a certain amount of jostling goes on, especially if a few arrive at once. They do tend to turn up with preconceived ideas about the best spots, the likeliest perches. When you’ve been here as long as I have you get a certain pleasure from noting just how wrongheaded the new ones can be. I once witnessed a dogfight in a hazel where the resident was actually displaced. The new arrival, a tough little bully, settles on this beautiful straight rod thinking next season’s walking stick or broom handle if ever I saw one, and left the resident, whose time was nearly up, all torn and pitiful clinging to a fussy splayed-out twig overhanging the road. What happens then? Nothing at all for three years, three drops in the great eternal ocean, and then one bright morning along comes a little boy with a pocket knife and cuts off the entire overhang to make a roof for his den, so the displaced resident, and several of his companions, are released more or less on time.
Which merely confirms that you cannot cheat the System. Or at least not by trying. I’ve known plenty get off way ahead of time through the unpredictable behaviour of their nearest and dearest left behind. Complete strangers, too; I’ve seen him, for example, go out of his way to cut a fly-swat or a letter-opener or a cane for his sweet peas as if permanently driven by pity. On the other hand, I have heard of those who try to plan in advance, as if they were simply making arrangements for their old age: I’ll be in the big ash, says the matriarch, the fine old ash that practically embraces the farmhouse by now, so mind you cut it down next year when I’m gone and make furniture, make fenceposts, fix the gate to the marshy field, use the twigs for bedding, burn the rest; mind you do it all within the year. And the family, more reluctant to lose the old tree than the old woman, do as they’re bid, and of course she’s anywhere but: probably in a scrubby little hawthorn down the lane, hopping mad. Not, of course, that they know that, so they do have the rewarding glow of filial piety for all their effort. And think of all the others released from such a tree! But best, on balance, not to fight the System, such as it is. You’ll do your time.
The splendid straight hazel rod was ignored for another seven years, and then it was only used to prop up the collapsing door of an old outbuilding. Pity, as it would have made a lovely walking stick. Much like his, now.