SIR – I sang in Worcester’s glorious 281st Three Choirs Festival as a member of the Hereford chorus and our first concert was Elgar’s The Apostles.

Three evenings later I was walking through CrownGate to the cathedral to sing again when I encountered three ‘surgeons’ killing the last silver birch trees there.

I asked why, and one man said: “Silver birch leaves are more slippery on pavements.”

When I told a group of workers how sad I was the reply came: “This is progress.”

Later a flower seller told me: “The trees were diseased.” Who was right?

Elgar must be turning in his grave. He once wrote: “This is what I hear all day – the trees are singing my music – or am I singing theirs?”

One hundred years on, we are cutting down our song and our world.

THE REV RICHARD BIRT,

Hereford.