YOU don’t get to your fifties without having a range of different experiences that make life exciting, but so far getting arrested hasn’t been one of them.

The other day, however, I got as close as I ever have. What’s more, I was challenged by a man with a gun.

Regular readers of this column will know that one of my purposes in life is to spread the word about Alfred Williams, a self-made man and a brilliant author who was also one of us, having lived all his life in South Marston.

I find Alfred an inspiring and fascinating chap, especially as so much still survives that tells us about his amazing life in detail, which is more or less why I am the vice-chair of the Alfred Williams Heritage Society.

This has many side effects, and the most alarming is it stimulates my nerdy genes, of which there are many.

So when somebody came up to me during the recent excellent Swindon Festival of Poetry and told me he had located Alfred’s willow tree, I had my coat on before you could say anorak.

The tree of which I speak is one near Acorn Bridge, and Alfred used to sit in it and compose poetry in his head, before rushing home to get it down on paper. Topically, this included his longest, called The Testament, which was published exactly 100 years and one month ago.

So it’s not just any old tree to nerds like me, but THE tree.

We had sort of assumed that – 82 years after his death – Alfred’s tree might have been chopped down or fallen down, but no, it is still standing, and I easily located it on the banks of the River Cole, right by the railway embankment.

The only problem is, it was on the other side of the riverbank to me – and I wanted a closer look.

To cut a long story short, I found my way to the other side and had just finished photographing it when I was challenged by a puzzled-looking man driving a little all-terrain buggy with a gun strapped to the side.

He turned out to be the gamekeeper.

When he asked me what I was up to, I decided the best thing to do, when you are on a nerdy mission like that, is to come clean, so I told him all about the tree.

He’d never heard of Alfred Williams, but accepted my story, and although he seemed relieved that I wasn’t going to make any trouble, by now it was raining quite hard, I had left my coat in the car – and I was looking a bit bedraggled.

So there was an awkward moment when he seemed to be making up his mind whether to call for medical assistance.

But we ended up having a nice chat and swapping information, and I apologised for inadvertently straying on to private land. Next time I visit the tree I shall admire it from the public side of the river.

The full story of Alfred’s tree, along with tree pictures, are at www.alfredwilliams.org.uk, where I hope you will also find some explanation as to what is so inspiring about a dead poet that he causes grey-haired men to go traipsing about the countryside in the rain, searching for trees.

If this column doesn’t appear next week, I’ll either be sat in a willow tree, composing poetry, or you’ll know that my next brush with the law while going about my nerdy business wasn’t received so sympathetically.

If you see a petition demanding my release, I hope you will do the right thing.