Some moments in childhood are frozen in time, vivid and vital, an anchor. When James Aldred tracked down an old horse-drawn wagon he once played in, he found himself inside one such moment again. However broken and rotten, it transported him to a magical summer in the New Forest forty years ago and awakened in him the possibility of reliving it with his young family.

In his evocative memoir, Aldred chronicles his return to a cherished landscape. As he painstakingly restores the wagon, learning from local crafts people, he delves into both the New Forest’s natural history and storied past, tracing its roots back to the 16th century and even further to the time of William the Conqueror. Camera traps reveal otters hunting in the brook nearby, while the nearby goshawk nest and fox earth speak to the area’s thriving wildlife.

Narrated by James Aldred