The Secret Life of Trees - Season 1 Episode 1 - The Early Years - video Dailymotion

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Transcript

00:00Three trillion trees blanket our world.

00:12From spectacular cherries in spring,

00:17to the golden maples of North America,

00:22and the strange-looking baobab trees of Madagascar.

00:30They can bring us joy...

00:34..and even keep us alive.

00:38All these amazing trees around us give us the air that we breathe.

00:43But what do we really know about their hidden world?

00:47As you get closer to the tree, it just gets more and more remarkable.

00:52In this series, we'll follow their incredible lifespans.

00:56There are trees alive on Earth today that are as old as the Great Pyramids.

01:01Discover how trees communicate.

01:04This whole wood is interconnected,

01:08and that opens up so many possibilities.

01:11And learn how they survive in some of the toughest places on Earth.

01:15In this first episode, we're beginning with birth.

01:27And the journey to become an adult.

01:32As we reveal how trees mate.

01:35These flowers aren't for us.

01:39They're bold for trees to have sex.

01:42And even how a growing tree drinks.

01:46I can hear it.

01:48Oh, what a lovely sound.

01:51You'll never look at a tree in the same way again.

01:54There are more than 70,000 species of tree on our planet.

02:15But they all begin life in the same way.

02:25Even the giants of the tree world.

02:30The redwoods.

02:31The largest trees on Earth live in Northern California.

02:46Towering up to 116 metres, they're taller than the Statue of Liberty.

02:51Redwoods grow in Europe too.

03:06And some of the biggest are found at Benmore Botanic Garden

03:10in Western Scotland.

03:14Tony Kirken was the head of trees at Kew Gardens.

03:17He's spent a lifetime around the world's greatest trees.

03:24I spent 50 years of my professional career working with trees.

03:30And I'm still learning about them every day.

03:37So these trees are the giant redwoods.

03:40And they're my favourite trees.

03:42And I think it's probably because of the sheer size that they make.

03:45And how long they live for.

03:48Up to 3,000 years old.

03:50And they can have trunks about 8 metres diameter.

03:53So they, you know, they are monsters.

03:58These were planted in 1863.

04:01So they're just about 160 years old.

04:06They're taller than Nelson's Column.

04:08To put things into perspective.

04:1050, 55 metres.

04:11So they're tall.

04:14But like almost all trees, even these giants begin life as something tiny.

04:27Little seeds.

04:28So one of the incredible things about these massive trees is that they come from a seed this small.

04:37So tiny.

04:38Most people would think it would be the size of a coconut, you know, to make a tree this big.

04:42But they are minute.

04:43They are minute.

04:45To think that something so small can generate something so massive.

04:50All the redwoods and all the trees on the planet, three trillion of them, all grow from something so small.

04:58I think that's pretty amazing, astonishing actually.

05:08But how are seeds actually made in the first place?

05:12For many trees, the creation of new life begins with one of the most beautiful displays in the natural world.

05:27Blossom.

05:28For a few brief weeks in spring, trees are painted in a fresh coat of color.

05:43As their flowers burst into life.

05:45into life.

05:51From the vivid pinks of Japan's cherry trees, to the pastel shades of almonds, apples, peaches

06:00and plums, and from magnolias to the vibrant pomegranate tree.

06:15But as beautiful as it looks, all this colour isn't for us.

06:21It has a very important job, helping the tree to create new life in the form of seeds.

06:33This is one of my favourite times of the year, when all the colour starts to appear back into

06:38the countryside after such a long, barren, bleak winter.

06:43Biologist Connor Butler is visiting elder trees.

06:49Each elder has thousands of flowers, many more than most blossom trees.

06:57And in this orchard at Beaver Farm, the sweet-scented blooms are bursting into life.

07:05Connor is here to unlock the mystery of why many trees produce blossom.

07:10This field is filled with thousands and thousands of flowers, and it smells really incredible

07:15right now.

07:16But these flowers aren't for us.

07:18They evolve for trees to have sex.

07:21Like us, to mate the next generation, trees need to reproduce.

07:32But when it comes to mating, they have a major problem.

07:37They are literally rooted to the spot.

07:40So unlike us, trees can't move.

07:42So in order for them to find a mate, they've actually got to find a pretty ingenious way

07:46to do that.

07:47And the way they've done that is to have flowers.

07:50The clever trees are using flowers to attract something that can move, bees and other insects,

08:08to help them mate.

08:10So I've just caught this bee off this elderflower tree here.

08:14And this bee is visiting all of the flowers.

08:17And these flowers are really brightly coloured, they smell fantastic.

08:21And they contain a really sugary liquid called nectar.

08:24And the trees produce that nectar to try and attract these pollinating insects in.

08:30The flowers look beautiful to us, but for insects, they look a whole other level of attractiveness.

08:35Trees use their bright flowers and sweet-smelling nectar to lure in the bees.

08:45And whilst the bee is getting a tasty treat, the tree gives it something else to take away.

08:53Pollen.

08:55So pollen is essentially tree sperm, and it wants to get that pollen as far away as possible

09:00to a tree which could be hundreds and hundreds of metres away.

09:02So it uses bees and other insects to do that travelling.

09:08On beautiful spring days, as the air is filled with the scent of flowers, it also hums with

09:17the soundtrack of insects.

09:23A single bee can visit more than a thousand flowers in one day.

09:32Bees and trees working together to create a seed.

09:36So let's have a closer look at some of these flowers.

09:40What we can see here are the male parts, which are a bit kind of yellowish in colour.

09:44They're kind of sticking up out of the flower.

09:46And on each one of these is loads and loads of pollen grains.

09:50And when a bee or an insect visits the flower, it gets covered in this really dusty pollen.

09:55And when it's had its fill, it flies off to another flower.

09:57When it lands on that flower, it then deposits that pollen onto the female part, which is

10:03right in the centre of this flower.

10:04The pollen will make its way to an egg hidden inside.

10:11And that is the moment of conception, and that is where the seed starts to form.

10:23And actually, on some of these bunches here, we can see the petals have dropped off and

10:28that will then swell and starts to grow into a seed.

10:35Most blossom only lasts a few short weeks in spring.

10:39Once the tree has shed its petals, it focuses its energy over the summer months, growing

10:45thousands of brand new seeds.

10:56But fewer than one in a thousand newly created seeds will make it into adulthood.

11:06So for many, there's a long and precarious journey ahead.

11:11It's summertime.

11:29And for trees, it's an important season for their precious offspring.

11:36The seeds are growing fast, and soon they'll be ready to leave home.

11:46To get the best start in life, they must take root far from the parent tree.

11:53And many have adopted ingenious ways to travel.

12:04Some use the wind, like the cleverly shaped helicopter seeds of sycamores and maples, catching

12:13a gust to be scattered far and wide.

12:21Other seeds are tucked away inside colorful fruits to entice hungry animals.

12:30They eat the fruit, but leave the seeds behind to take root away from the parent tree.

12:38And then, from the bare soil, a brand new tree begins to grow.

12:54But for many infant trees, the next stage of life can be challenging.

13:06In Italy, the steep slopes along its southern coastline are the perfect place to grow lemon

13:14trees.

13:20Salvatore Iaceto tends to 2,600 amalfi lemon trees on a 12-acre farm his family has worked

13:29for two centuries.

13:32I represent my sixth generation in the lemon farm, the business.

13:38The lemons are everything for us.

13:42We have a connection with the plants.

13:43We consider our plants like our relatives, part of our family.

13:48In our veins, we don't have blood, we have lemon juice.

13:57In Salvatore's orchard, he has a special nursery for the youngest infant trees.

14:07Lemon trees grow up fast, and by the age of just five, they're producing their own juicy fruit.

14:19It's huge.

14:26You can eat it like an apple.

14:28It is very sweet.

14:30You can't imagine.

14:35But there's a problem.

14:39Just like any infant, Salvatore's young trees can be reckless.

14:46These inexperienced youngsters are making more fruit than their slender branches can bear.

14:54We are having a lot of trouble on the young trees because when the plant has too much lemons, it can be a little bit dangerous.

15:05The young trees get so carried away producing lemons, they're at risk of snapping their branches.

15:13So they're given a frame to hold onto as they grow.

15:17To support the lemons, we're tired, and we use it like a scaffolding because it's the same as human nature.

15:24When you are young, you need more attention to the father, to the mother.

15:28It's the same for the plants.

15:31It's the same as baby in the cradle.

15:37They stay nice, they have a support, and they can grow them better.

15:45Once they're matured, the trees can safely bear huge quantities of giant lemons.

15:52We have to wait 15, 20 years.

15:55This tree, like for example, this tree can give me 150 kilograms.

16:02Salvatore's tiny slice of the Amalfi Coast produces 70 tons of luscious lemons a year.

16:13And I know many people don't believe, but when I sell my lemons, I am jealous.

16:17I don't want to give up because I consider my lemons like a baby.

16:21I don't want to give my baby.

16:29After a long day in the orchard, Salvatore's wife Giovanna uses their precious fruit to make a meal for two.

16:38The lemons are everything for us.

16:47I eat, I drink lemons, I see lemons sometimes, I drink lemons.

16:51With this spaghetti, she cooks very well, it's simple.

16:57At the end of the day, what else?

16:59Spaghetti, the taste is very, very nice, a simple food.

17:04And the lemon zest, the lemon sauce, it's fantastic.

17:17From lemon trees growing in the Italian sunshine...

17:21..to 11,000 trees thriving in one of the most famous gardens in the world.

17:32The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London is home to 2,000 different species of tree.

17:43It's the perfect place to find out how young trees mature into adulthood.

17:55Just like us, all growing youngsters need to eat.

18:03And for a tree, its food is sunlight, which it gathers with its leaves.

18:10Cecily Withall is a member of Kew's tree gang.

18:18Her job is to keep a watchful eye on the health of the garden's trees.

18:24As a child, I'd climb trees a lot, and my family now find it hilarious

18:35that I'd climb trees for a job as a grown-up.

18:38To get to literally work with these trees every day,

18:41it really is something that is beyond wonderful.

18:45The leaves at Kew span every conceivable shape, colour and size.

18:57Today, Cecily is checking up on some of her favourite trees.

19:03Starting with one that has some of the biggest leaves.

19:08The Indian bean tree, otherwise known as catalpa.

19:14So, as you can see, this is a huge leaf on the catalpa,

19:21and some can reach up to 30 centimetres in length,

19:24which is really big compared to other species of tree.

19:30Big leaves are ideal for taking on the most important job for any tree,

19:35feeding itself.

19:39The most amazing things that trees do is their ability to make their own food.

19:43So, we, as humans, have to source our food to fuel our bodies.

19:48But the tree here is making its own.

19:52Trees are very, very clever, and they do something called photosynthesis.

19:56And that's when they're taking in the sun's energy through the sunlight

20:00that penetrates the leaf.

20:01When you look at that, it's a huge leaf.

20:05It's a huge leaf.

20:06It's giving the most surface area to collect the light.

20:10Leaves combine the energy from the sun with water sucked up from the ground,

20:17as well as carbon dioxide from the air.

20:20A remarkable recipe that creates trees' food.

20:25I think it's pretty amazing that leaves are able to make and produce their own food,

20:30whereas we're still popping off to the shops.

20:37To catch as much nourishing sunlight as they can,

20:40trees spread their leaves over as great an area as possible.

20:45One single tree can grow two billion leaves.

20:58And all these leaves don't just feed the tree.

21:02By soaking up carbon dioxide from the air,

21:05trees also help to combat climate change.

21:12This purple-leaved oak has a vast leaf canopy.

21:17The thousands, hundreds of thousands of leaves covering this tree

21:20are doing such a huge job.

21:23It's spread out here as much as possible to make the most of that sunlight,

21:27and it's competing against all the trees around it as well.

21:31That's why you see canopies stretching out past other trees

21:34to really push them into the sunlight.

21:37They'll push their leaves and their branches...

21:39They'll push their leaves and their branches out

21:42to find that source of the sun,

21:44because they obviously need it to find that source of the sun,

21:47because they obviously need it to survive.

21:55Not far away is another of Q's gems,

21:59a tree with a distinctive leaf shape...

22:02..the ginkgo.

22:09I think it's really hard not to create bonds

22:12with certain trees in the garden,

22:13and I think I've got a secret bond with the ginkgo,

22:16just because of its history and lineage.

22:19This tree was known to be growing 200 million years ago,

22:27and we still find fossils now

22:29that look identical to the leaf shape of the ginkgo.

22:32Ginkgo's are one of the most ancient species of tree living on Earth.

22:44It's remarkable to think that leaves just like this

22:48were eaten by dinosaurs.

22:50But growing trees can't reach adulthood on sunlight alone.

23:03They need to drink vast amounts of water.

23:08But that begs the question,

23:11how do they survive in some of the hottest places on our planet?

23:15As a new day dawns,

23:34young trees stretch out their leaves towards the rising sun,

23:41gathering its energy as food.

23:47But growing trees can't live on sunlight alone.

23:53They must drink water.

23:59And finding enough to quench its thirst

24:02is a life-or-death challenge for a fragile young tree.

24:06But how does a tree survive

24:13if its home is a desert?

24:20Acacia trees grow in a part of Israel

24:23where it rains less than an inch in a whole year.

24:30To thrive, these trees have extra-long roots

24:34and grow in places where they can tap

24:36into underground sources of water,

24:41some as deep as 30 metres.

24:50In Madagascar,

24:51there's one of the planet's most unusual-looking trees,

24:56the otherworldly baobab.

24:59Known as the camels of the tree world,

25:05the wood inside their giant trunks

25:08acts like a sponge.

25:14Incredibly,

25:14each tree can suck up and hold

25:17120,000 litres of water.

25:23That's as much as one of us would drink in 100 years.

25:29In Australia,

25:39eucalyptus trees also manage to thrive in scorching heat.

25:46These young trees are some of the fastest-growing on Earth.

25:51They need to drink a lot of water.

25:53So, what does a tree do to quench its thirst?

26:03Wildlife sound recordist Ellie Williams

26:05is hoping to reveal exactly how they do it.

26:13When you look at a tree,

26:14it doesn't seem that similar to us.

26:16They seem still and passive,

26:19and yet they share so many needs that we do.

26:22They need nutrients,

26:24they need to grow and they need to drink.

26:30Ellie believes that she can find out how a tree drinks

26:33simply by listening.

26:35This plantation is full of lots of different age eucalyptus trees.

26:42This one's really young and it's got really beautiful leaves

26:45with kind of pink veins and a pink rim.

26:48And the leaves are a really different shape as well

26:50in young eucalyptus trees,

26:52and nobody really knows why.

26:54But there are some older trees in the other side,

26:57so I'm going to wander over there now.

27:14This thirsty, teenage tree is already ten metres tall

27:20and should be ideal to listen to while it drinks.

27:24This is my contact mic.

27:26And it does this magic thing of picking up

27:28the tiniest vibrations or sound waves

27:32through this metal pin.

27:49It's quite windy today.

27:51The first thing I notice is the kind of really warm rumblings,

27:54and that's the big vibrations as the tree sways in the breeze.

28:03As she tunes in,

28:05Ellie taps into fainter sounds from within the tree.

28:14The breeze has slowed down a little bit,

28:17which might give me a chance to hear this really delicate sound.

28:20It's the sound I really want to hear.

28:23And if I'm lucky...

28:28OK, that might have been one.

28:31Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there was a little gurgle.

28:33I can hear it.

28:34Oh, what a lovely sound.

28:36It's like the most gentle little kind of series of bubbles.

28:39These faint popping noises are the sounds the young tree is making as it drinks.

28:51Defying gravity as it sucks water all the way up its long trunk.

29:06Defying gravity as it sucks water all the way up its long trunk.

29:13So trees are full of these tiny little tubes.

29:18Imagine hundreds and hundreds of metres of tiny little drinking straws.

29:22And what the tree does is it pulls water and nutrients from the soil through the roots,

29:29up through the trunk, into the branches, into the leaves.

29:33It's just these tiny little bubbling, popping sounds.

29:39So that's basically the sound of air mixing with the water in the tubes.

29:45And eucalyptus trees are so, so thirsty.

29:48Each tree can drink about a bathtub's worth of water a day.

29:53You put these on and there's a whole other world going on.

30:00And it's loud and it's dramatic and it's beautiful.

30:05So we kind of feel that trees aren't doing that much, but they're doing so much.

30:10It makes you realise that there is all this life and movement happening all the time,

30:15but we just don't notice it.

30:16The secret life of trees is happening all around us.

30:34Young trees that started life as tiny seeds are getting taller and stronger.

30:39But like most teenagers on their journey towards adulthood,

30:48the speed at which they grow is incredibly varied.

30:56Some trees gain height quickly.

31:00These weeping willows can grow by nearly three metres in a single year.

31:09They have far-reaching roots that draw on the abundance of water around them.

31:17Some of the slowest growing trees live high up in America's Rocky Mountains.

31:24This is the home of the whitebark pine.

31:31The trees spend eight months of the year shrouded in snow,

31:35leaving them just four months to grow.

31:41And to reach their adult size, it takes these pines an incredible 250 years,

31:50a quarter of a millennium.

31:56Every tree on earth is fed and nourished by gathering sunshine with their leaves

32:03and water from their roots.

32:06But how exactly do trees physically grow?

32:20In the new forest, Forestry England archaeologist,

32:25Lawrence Shaw, has an unusual way of finding out.

32:29When I'm walking through forests, I think it's probably a very different experience to most other people.

32:36As others might be listening out for birds or looking at the wildlife.

32:40I'm interpreting how people have interacted with this landscape over millennia.

32:45Lawrence is looking for tree graffiti.

32:53The carvings that people have made on trees in the past.

32:56Isn't this tree just beautiful and it's absolutely littered with historic tree graffiti.

33:03People leaving their mark.

33:05They can date back hundreds, sometimes thousands of years and they can connect us to individuals,

33:13specific events, a whole host of different things.

33:15So we have two initials here and a beautifully signed signature of T.B. James and the year of 1944,

33:24all carved into the tree bark of this beech tree.

33:27And we know that American service personnel were stationed here in advance of the D-Day landing.

33:33And there's every probability that T.B. James was an American serviceman who was part of that assault on Normandy,

33:40on that fateful night that was going to shape the war and the world for years to come.

33:50These days we shouldn't carve our names into trees as it can harm them.

33:55But these inscriptions from history can help Lawrence uncover the secret of how this beech tree has grown.

34:03Whilst the tree is several metres taller than it was during the Second World War,

34:12the carving itself hasn't moved any higher.

34:16It's been, yeah, 18 years since.

34:18But what's lovely to see is that it's still at exactly the same height that that individual carved those.

34:24So whilst the tree has grown upwards, this has stayed where it is.

34:33This tells us that the tree has gained all its new height at the top of its trunk,

34:42rather than growing upwards from its base.

34:46Now Lawrence is in search of older tree graffiti,

34:51to see if the same is true even after hundreds of years have passed.

34:56So the new forest was created by William the Conqueror in 1079 as a royal hunting forest.

35:11Over the next seven centuries, thousands of trees were planted for England's kings and queens.

35:21Oaks provided wood for the warships of Henry VIII,

35:25and Elizabeth I.

35:30And Lawrence knows of a special tree still standing that was growing in the 1800s,

35:37when George III's navy was fighting sea battles against Napoleon Bonaparte.

35:49So this is a lovely example of a king's mark on this beech tree.

35:53So you've got the shaft of the arrow coming down the trunk of the tree,

35:56with the two returns making the point of the arrow there.

35:59And this is used to mark and infantry trees that are going to be used for shipbuilding.

36:07The arrow told foresters not to cut it down.

36:10The wood was to be saved for a warship.

36:15The mark on this beech tree was made around 200 years ago.

36:21At the time, the tree was still young and only a few metres tall.

36:25Over the past two centuries, the tree has added at least 20 metres in height,

36:33and yet the mark hasn't moved at all.

36:37I'm basically stood at the same head level as the individual that drew this carving.

36:43200 years ago, this tree would have been thinner,

36:46but the mark itself is at the same position that it was drawn at that time.

36:52What's lovely about historic tree graffiti is that they demonstrate

36:55the growing processes of trees. It may warp as a tree grows wider.

37:03But certainly these things don't disappear up with the tree.

37:05The 200-year-old carving proves that trees don't grow from the base of their trunk.

37:16Instead, as they get taller, all the tree's growth happens higher up,

37:23as it stretches its branches towards the sunlight.

37:26If trees do most of their growing throughout the warm summer months,

37:37how do they prepare themselves for the freezing weather of winter?

37:42It's autumn, a spectacular time in a tree's calendar.

38:04After gathering in the sunlight of summer,

38:07many trees must do one last remarkable thing

38:10before they can rest over winter.

38:18This is Forestry England's Westonbert Arboretum in Gloucestershire.

38:29Arborist Joe Porter looks after its 15,000 trees.

38:40He's fascinated by why, in autumn, many erupt into a riot of colour.

38:46As you can see, the trees are putting on some lovely colour for us.

38:51It's great to see so many people enjoying all of these beautiful trees and enjoying having that

39:01connection with nature. With the busyness of our job, every now and then it is quite nice just to stop,

39:08take a look and see this colour and it lifts your spirits a little bit. But it's also not just for us

39:13that they're doing this. There's also a lot of important stuff going on inside the trees as they prepare for winter.

39:20Many of the two and a half thousand species of trees here are deciduous,

39:32which means they lose their leaves every year after a flourish of autumn colour.

39:39And none are more dramatic than the acers.

39:49Acer is the botanical name for a maple tree. You tend to see a lot of these plants in people's gardens.

39:56The leaf shape looks like your hand. It helps them with wind deflection.

40:01The wind can move through the leaves and it causes less damage when it does get up to high winds.

40:09They're a little bit of a marker for when autumn has come. They go in this beautiful colour and they

40:13brighten up people's gardens when the gloomy weather comes and they're just this brilliant

40:17sort of show at the beginning of autumn.

40:21But why do leaves change their colour from green to vibrant shades of red and gold?

40:30So this time of year, as autumn moves through and we move into winter,

40:34the trees have got to prepare themselves for shorter days and colder temperatures.

40:39Leaves could get damaged in winter with frostbite, high winds,

40:43so they've got to prepare themselves and get themselves ready for this hibernation time of year for them.

40:49Over the summer, the leaves have been gathering energy from sunshine.

41:01In autumn, the colour changes we see from greens to oranges, yellows and reds

41:10are caused by the trees stopping this food-making process.

41:14When we see green leaves like this, it's because they're full of what we call chlorophyll.

41:23It's a chemical inside the leaf that helps the tree to photosynthesise and create food for itself.

41:33What we see throughout the process of autumn is the breakdown of that chlorophyll

41:37as it draws all of its good nutrients back into itself.

41:43Trees sense the shorter days and cooler air of autumn.

41:49It triggers them to claw back their harder nutrients, removing the green and revealing the naked leaf beneath.

41:57And what we are seeing is this natural hue in behind, which is the colour that is present all year round,

42:06but you just don't see it because the chlorophyll is so dominating in its colour.

42:09As the trees slowly break down the chlorophyll, different combinations of chemicals are left behind.

42:21They've had this gradual transition throughout autumn,

42:25trying to get that every last bit of sunlight that they can before winter comes along.

42:30So here we have one of our younger acers. You can tell it's a really good and healthy and vigorous tree.

42:52Quite often when you see trees dropping their leaves, it can be seen as quite a sad thing,

42:56but it's a really positive move for the tree as it hunkers down for the winter, protects itself,

43:03and then there's some tiny little buds starting to poke through, which means it's ready come springtime

43:08to sort of burst forth and continue producing its food from its leaves.

43:13And in a few days or weeks, this spectacle will be over.

43:30As trees let the wind carry away the leaves they no longer need.

43:34For every deciduous tree, it's a vital stage in their long lives.

43:48As they fall into a winter slumber, they've ensured that they have saved enough energy to get taller

43:56and stronger for next spring and the year ahead.

44:07Next time, we follow trees in the prime of their lives, as they do the most extraordinary things.

44:15These trees here, they are essentially talking to each other.

44:19Adapting to withstand attacks from nature.

44:24And from us.

44:25You had chimneys belching out, smoke, soot, and this tree managed to deal with that.

44:32As they grow into the largest living things on the planet's surface.

44:38It blows my mind.

44:39Even though I've been working with trees for 50 years, it still fascinates me how they stand up.

44:44For more information about the secret life of British trees, go to the Woodland Trust.

44:51At woodlandtrust.org.uk

44:55Slash trees

44:57The Secret Life of Trees continues brand new next Friday at nine.

45:05From North Korea to Nigeria, follow Michael Palin's adventures around the world, streaming now on five.

45:11And what makes Princess Anne a quite remarkable royal?

45:15We explore her extraordinary career, brand new tomorrow at nine.

45:19Next, lip reading the royals, The Secret Conversations.

The Secret Life of Trees - Season 1 Episode 1 - The Early Years

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