Country diary: Today was once a public holiday, thanks to these oak 'apples' | Paul Evans

The Marches, Shropshire: You never know what kind of parasites you might find lurking in an old tree “Oak apple day, the 29th of May,” is a rhyming reminder of the public holiday ordered by Charles II to celebrate the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. After his escape from parliamentarians by hiding in an oak tree at Boscobel in Shropshire, it is no great leap of imagination to associate a hidden king with oak apples: parasitic galls are strange, uncanny fruit that encourage satire at leas...

By Paul Evans