United Kingdom

I must have planted many thousands of trees - a lot of pine, which isn't great, but also some well-planned mixed broadleaf which I'm quite proud of. I don't know if I could remember where the plantations were this many years on, but I've sometimes fantasized about revisiting some of them if I'm ever down south with time on my hands.

Planting could be gruelling on tough ground (most of it was tough - lots of flint and clay etc.), but my choice for a punishment detail would be weeding young plantations. It paid a pittance and was backbreaking and painstaking, especially in the heat of summer, as one wrong move with the brashing hook and you'd take out a sapling, which you'd have to take note of.

The weeds included brambles nearly as thick as my wrist. My hands were literally in tatters the whole time I was working at that, despite wearing gloves, and it gave me a fungal infection all over the backs of my fingers that took almost a year to get rid of.

When we weren't doing that, we were erecting rabbit and deer fencing - digging post holes in the most unyielding soil imaginable, then using ultra-heavy post drivers to hammer in the uprights was pretty testing, if muscle-building, especially if you had someone particularly burly and gung-ho on the other handle.



Eight hours a day of any of that starting at 7.30 a.m. for months on end, rain or shine, should be enough of a corrective for most people.