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What could you make out of a tree with your own hands?

Across much of the world the ash tree has been used for centuries to make everything from axe handles, to cartwheels and even the first motorcars.

Now ash is threatened - by a disease called ash dieback, and a beetle called the Emerald ash borer.

Rob Penn has just written a book - The Man Who Made Things Out of Trees - about our intimate relationship with the tree and what we can use it for.

We filmed as he felled a 70-foot ash in the Black Mountains of south Wales - part of his forestry management efforts to keep the ash and other trees thriving there.

Produced by the Â鶹Éç's Matthew Price for the Today programme.