Celebrities who love pine!

Muriel Gray; writer, broadcaster & Trees for Life Patron.

Muriel Gray loves pine because...

"The Scots pine is one of the most beautiful trees in the world and mature pines are so visually stunning they almost become iconic objects. Deeply pitted red-barked boles soar up to fascinatingly contorted branches, hung with their distinctive clumps of needles and cones. Our pines are the very essence of Scotland’s wild land; tough, resilient, and yet timelessly beautiful. I don’t just love pines, I utterly adore them. Let’s keep planting and nourishing them."

Muriel Gray

Sir John Lister Kaye; author, naturalist and founder of Aigas Field Centre

Sir John Lister Kaye loves pine because...

"I love Scots pine trees on their own, but in their proper place - a majestic Caledonian pine forest - they support an explosion of wildlife and diversity which constitutes one of the richest habitats in the UK. We urgently need to expand and restore these vibrant old forests. To sit under an old pine in the heart of an ancient pine forest on a June dawn, waiting for capercaillie cocks to begin their mysterious, clicking and popping lekking dance is as close to true wilderness as you can get in Scotland. It is, quite simply, magical."

"Ancient Caledonian pine forest is the closest God came to building a cathedral. The bogs and heathery spaces, the soft and dark shade, the delicate birches and glowing rowans are home to a precious assemblage of wildlife I love and treasure. But it was meant to be far larger than it is – we have reduced it to a barely sustainable fragment. We urgently need to expand and restore these vibrant old forests."

Sir John Lister-Kaye Bt. OBE

Vanessa Collingridge; writer and television and radio broadcaster

Vanessa Collingridge loves pine because...

"To stand amongst the pines is to suspend the fevered march of time and just ‘be’. Their stillness is inspirational: they’re a precious reminder that Nature is bigger, better and more enduring than any of us. No matter how important we might think we are, how pressing our problems or how urgent our needs might seem, to stand underneath a granny pine and look up into her strong embrace is to regain a proper perspective."

"Walking through the pinewoods always makes me smile. I love being in the Caledonian Forest with my children as they can see all the stages of life – from the pine cones and seeds to the saplings, to the majestic adults and all-knowing granny pines. It’s a great way to get them thinking about the cycles of nature – and to make Nature their friend, rather than something to be feared."

Vanessa Collingridge

Kenny Taylor; writer and broadcaster Photo by Gerry Cambridge

Kenny Taylor loves pine because...

"More than any other trees, Scots pines hold the very essence of the Caledonian Forest for me. In gale or calm, snow or rain, the deep green of their crowns seems a constant. When evening sun draws a honeyed glow from trunk and branch, my spirit sings at the sight of them, and I smile at thoughts of what they are and what they yet could be."

Kenny Taylor

Jim Crumley; writer, columnist and radio broadcaster

Jim Crumley loves pine because...

"I love the pinewoods. I have often been hijacked by the persuasiveness of their embrace so that I have covered half a dozen green miles instead of twenty mountain miles, and still emerged from the day with my thirst slaked. To keep the woods’ company is to dwell amongst friends, to be immersed in pools of wilderness, for there are no wilder miles in the land than these. There is no more tenacious clasp on the landscape of the past – the trees reach back a mere thirty generations to the Ice Age, a startling echo."

Jim Crumley

Cameron McNeish; mountaineer, writer and broadcaster

Cameron McNeish loves pine because...

"Loiter in the winding streets of the Caledonian Forest. Be bold – hug a pine tree, embrace it without embarrassment, and take from the red roughness something of its antiquity, its rugged beauty and its resilience. In exchange, leave behind your promise of protection."

Cameron McNeish

Carole Baxter; horticulturist, writer and co-presenter of BBC Scotland's Beechgrove Garden Programme

Carole Baxter loves pine because...

"I love to wander amongst our native pinewoods, they are such a magical place. Peaceful, with filtered light reaching onto the rich forest floor and there’s always a thrill of excitement should I spot a shy but agile red squirrel."

Carole Baxter

John Muir; Scottish-born naturalist, writer and founder of the Sierra Club in the USA

John Muir loved pine because...

"Few are altogether deaf to the preaching of pine trees. Their sermons on the mountains go to our hearts; and if people in general could be got into the woods, even for once, to hear the trees speak for themselves, all difficulties in the way of forest preservation would vanish."

John Muir

Laurie Campbell; wildlife photographer and author

Laurie Campbell loves pine because...

"To anyone walking among any of the remnants of the Caledonian Pine Forest for the first time, the experience is a taste of another era, a living time capsule which we must do all we can to protect and enlarge. Individual pines themselves have character too, and it was while sheltering beneath my favourite tree one squally day on upper Deeside that I began to wonder whether Landseer had got it wrong. Surely our pines are our true monarchs of the glen."

Laurie Campbell

Louise Batchelor; journalist, environment correspondent for BBC Scotland

Louise Batchelor loves pine because...

"All trees are special to me. With the right setting and proper care, even a Sitka spruce or sycamore look fine. But I love our native Scots pine because it shines out from among the others; perfectly designed for the Scottish landscape. Just as a vivid sunset lights up a winter evening, the deep pinky-orange bark glows from beneath a smoky green canopy, transforming the scenery no matter how dull the day. As for the more ancient specimens - no granny ever looked so glamorous!"

Louise Batchelor

Hamish McRae; author, journalist, associate editor of The Independent

Hamish McRae loves pine because...

"If there were a league table of great trees of the world the Scots pine would surely be somewhere at the top of the premier division: its size, hardiness and longevity would place it there. It is also wonderfully diverse – able to cope with very different environments – so it carries a message for all humankind."

Hamish McRae

Peter Cairns; nature photographer

Peter Cairns loves pine because...

"From season to season, from day to day, from hour to hour the pinewood wears a changing mood. Colour, shape, texture and form are sculpted by elemental forces - quiet and contemplative, angry and destructive. The pinewood, more than anywhere else, is a place where imaginations can soar. For me, it is a place of great sadness but equally, one of inspiration. The fragments which remain carry wounds sustained in a long and weary battle with our own species. But as I gaze at a veteran pine under which a wolf may have walked, it's gnarled fingers contorted against a fiery sunset , I imagine it to be the parent of a new generation rather than the last of a dying breed. "

Peter Cairns

Bill Ritchie MBE; crofter and forest campaigner

Bill Ritchie loves pine because...

"If you need a tree to shelter under, meditate under, sleep under or make love under - then a granny pine is the perfect tree! My favourite is NN573563."

Bill Ritchie

Alan Watson Featherstone loves pine because...

Large, old Scots pines, especially multi-trunked ones like this, are affectionately known as 'Granny pines'.

Alan Watson Featherstone; founder and Executive Director of Trees for Life

"Sometimes when I stand amongst these ancient pines and wonder at their distinctive, character-filled forms, I yearn to know their history, the innermost secrets of their life experience, and what has led them to grow in such a uniquely beautiful way. The creative essence of their tree-ness resonates deep in my heart, yet at the same time they seem otherworldly and unknowable to me. What stories their shapes, their living sculptural forms, could tell me, if I could but understand how to know them fully?"

Alan Watson Featherstone

 
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