THE wild woods of Tonbridge & Malling Borough were featured in a BBC television programme to celebrate 20 years since the publication of the first Harry Potter novel.
In Harry Potter: A History of Magic, which was shown on BBC2 on Saturday and is still available on iPlayer, two Kentish wand-makers were seen touring Holly Hill forest looking for mystical wood for their magical staffs.
Dusty Miller father and son, from Strood, are among very few professional livewood workers in the UK, and use the land between Vigo and Snodland to find their materials.
The long line of family craftsmen goes back hundreds of years and the Millers have the same given name handed down from one generation to the next.
Dusty XIV explained: “We work for the tree spirits so they tell us where to go to collect a piece of wood and which tree to collect it from.
“It’s all very complicated and often involves getting up in the middle of the night to be in the forest at daybreak.
“Why it always has to be daybreak I don’t know. Why can’t it be lunchtime?” he asked.
“Trees don’t have lunch,” retorted his father, Dusty XIII.
The Millers sell their wands all over the world for a variety of magical and healing purposes.
