'Tis the season to be busy

Christmas represents the climax of the working year for some rural businesses. Ben Lerwill talks to six stalwarts whose lives are hectic at this time and finds out how they cope with the deadlines-as well as how they relax

- Ben Lerwill

The Christmas-tree grower

GROWING Christmas trees came about fortuitously,' says Andrew Ingram of The Tree Barn in south Oxfordshire. 'I took over the family farm in 1970, in my early twenties -I'm 75 now and there was a hedgerow that needed thickening up, so we chose to do it with Christmas trees. We were a traditional farm with Jersey cows, but we couldn't compete with Friesians, so I had to sell the herd.

'I cast around for something else to do and noticed the trees were growing rather well, so I made the wise move of joining the British Christmas Tree Growers Association. Everything I've learned since that moment has been through them. I've been very fortunate. I found out I was on exactly the right soil type to grow them-free draining, slightly acidic and not in a frost pocket. I also happen to live in a place called Christmas Common and, if you can't sell Christmas trees from Christmas Common, there's something wrong with you!'

The Ingrams plant about 17,000 trees a year, of which they sell between 7,000 and 8,000 direct from the shop run by Mr Ingram's wife, Jane, together with hand-crafted decorations. They supply big display trees for London hotels and Oxford colleges and have provided the Downing Street tree three times.

'The ideal tree should have an almost perfect triangular shape,' Mr Ingram advises. 'It needs to be dense, with lots of branches, and the colour is important-you want a good, strong, dark green. When I started, we were growing Norway spruce, but the market has changed. Now, it's mainly Nordmann fir.