The Curious Case of the Heartless Walnut

I went down to the South coast yesterday to visit my Brother and to fell a Walnut tree which he planted from a nut about 30 years ago. This tree has been bearing nuts since it was about 13 years old but it was getting a bit big for the garden as it was overhanging his neighbour's garden despite regular pruning back.
The leaves fall into his garden pond, he normally takes the leaves out quickly enough to prevent any problems, but this year he left it too late and they poisoned the pond killing all his Rudd. That was the straw that broke the camel's back persuading him to take the tree down.
 It's about 13" across at the base, and relatively clean for about 6-7 feet. I wanted to make a bow from it as we had the whole back story of the tree.
My brothers friend Kelvin came over to fell it with a chainsaw and we were flabbergasted to see the wood was white all the way through, there was a faintest hint of pinkish colour near the middle but nothing resembling what we expected.

 I won't be posting it on Facebook because there will be hoards of armchair experts pontificating that it is Ash not walnut or that it lowland walnut or too fast growing or some such. To be honest I don't think anyone will actually know why it is like this, but if anyone has any actual personal experience of felling Walnut I would be interest to see their comments. Bear in mind, we've had mature walnut cut from within 400 yards of this sight which has yielded shotgun stock quality walnut!
Anyhow we split the log with only some success as it ran off one side, but after some more splitting and trimming we ended up with one reflexed piece which should yield 2 staves. I brought it back home on the roof rack and I'll persevere to see what it will do as a bow, treating it much as I would Ash or Hazel. One lesson seemed to be split it from the narrow end, although the next log I split may prove the opposite!

However despite the disappointment of the Walnut there was plenty of compensation in terms of good company, good conversation an Indian meal and a few pints!

By the way, the repair to the grip of the Bamboo backed Yew primitive (see previous post) seems successful, it's been back to 100# @ 29 on the tiller and will, weather permitting, get an outing on Sunday.