Our Oaken Bones : Reviving a Family, a Farm and Britain’s Ancient Rainforests

"I look up through the canopy and time freezes as the oak leaves drift gently backwards and forwards, dappling the light as it falls onto my body. I am home."

Reeling from the pain of devastating miscarriages and suffering from PTSD after military adventures in Afghanistan, Merlin and his wife Lizzie decide to leave the bustle of London and return to Merlin’s childhood home: a Cornish hill farm called Cabilla in the heart of Bodmin Moor.

There, they are met by unexpected challenges:

• A farm slipping ever further into debt.
• The discovery that the overgrazed and damaged woods running throughout the valley are, in fact, one of the UK’s last remaining fragments of Atlantic temperate rainforest.
• The sudden and near-catastrophic strickening by Covid of Merlin’s father, the explorer Robin.

As Merlin and Lizzie fall more in love with the rainforest that Merlin had adventured in as a child, they begin a fight to save not only themselves and their farm, but also one of the world’s most endangered habitats.

Our Oaken Bones is an honest and intimate true story about renewal, the astonishing healing power of nature, and our duty to heal it in return.

Praise for Our Oaken Bones:

"An enormously moving and inspiring story about war, trauma, nature and rebirth, written with infectious passion and unsparing honesty. I loved it."
— DOMINIC SANDBROOK

"An extraordinarily courageous, urgent and powerful book."
— ISABELLA TREE

"Deeply compelling... emotional, informative, pleasurable."

"I believe that this is an important work with planet-sized dreams and ambitions. Perhaps the greatest philosophy or teachable lesson that came to me off the page is that dominion comes with responsibility."
— RUSSELL CROWE

"I love this book."
— RICK STEIN

"Powerfully enchanting, written with verve and imbued with hope."
— GUY SHRUBSOLE