2 days ago | Advertorial | Fiona Keddie

“My eyes can’t find the solder joints any more. This is my last Christmas in the workshop.” Why a 74-year-old from the Scottish Highlands is selling his last Heart Birch trees at a special price – online for the first and last time

In an old stone stable behind his cottage in Grantown-on-Spey, Torquil Rennie has built little glowing birch trees with red hearts for 31 winters – and never sold a single one on the internet. On 20 December he switches off the workshop light for good. His final 274 trees are going online now. Once. And for half the price.

Torquil Rennie (74) in the old stone stable behind his cottage off the Square. After 31 Christmases, these are the last trees he will ever build.

Grantown-on-Spey, November. The first snow is already lying on the Cairngorms, and the old stone stable behind the cottage smells of wood smoke, hot solder and tea that has been stewing far too long. On the long workbench lie reels of copper wire and a shoebox full of little red, gold and silver hearts. Along the back wall, dozens of small birch trees glow warm and gold in the grey afternoon. Torquil Rennie sits under his magnifying lamp and bends one more branch into shape – the way he has done every winter evening since 1995. But this winter is different. It is his last.

“I’m 74,” he says, and holds a finished branch up to the light. “My eyes can’t find a solder joint the size of a grain of rice any more. And my fingers don’t like the cold out here the way they used to.” He laughs, but only a little. “Catriona has been telling me for three years it’s time. This year I finally listened.”

And it isn’t only his eyes. “People don’t buy things to keep any more,” he says. “They buy a light-up tree for twenty pounds, it goes dark after one season, and it ends up in the skip. I never built anything I’d want to see in a skip.”

31 winters, more than 9,000 little birches – and not one sold online

It started with a tree that fell. For decades, a tall old silver birch stood at the bottom of the Rennies’ garden. Torquil proposed to Catriona under it in 1973. In the winter of 1995 a gale brought it down. “Catriona stood at the kitchen window and cried,” Torquil remembers. “Twenty-three years as a linesman for the Hydro Board, and that was the one thing I couldn’t fix.”

So he did what he knew. Out in the stable he bent a little tree from copper wire, gave every branch the white bark of a birch, and put a tiny warm light at the tip of each one. On Christmas Eve he set it in the front window. Catriona took the small glass hearts from her mother’s old decorations tin and hung them on the branches, one by one. “She called it her heart birch,” Torquil says. “The name never went away.”

The neighbours saw the little tree glowing in the window. The next December, forty of them knocked on the stable door. For 31 years, that is how it stayed: you bought a Heart Birch at the workshop behind the cottage or at the Christmas fair on the Square – or not at all. More than 9,000 of them have left this workshop. Not one of them was ever sold online.

Every branch starts as a piece of copper wire. Torquil bends it and wires every tiny light by hand – the same way since 1995.

What makes a Heart Birch so special

At dusk, a Heart Birch turns a dark window into the cosiest spot in the house.

At first glance it is the light. When it gets dark, a soft, warm-white glow sits at the tip of every branch, like little candles in the snow. The white trunk and branches catch the glow, and the hearts shimmer red, gold and silver in between. It looks less like a decoration and more like a small winter tree that someone carried in from the woods.

Torquil builds every tree to last. The trunk is a sturdy core that won’t crack, warp or dry out next to a wood burner. Every branch is copper wire that he bends into shape by hand, so you can gently adjust it yourself, and every one gets the white bark look of the silver birches along the Spey. The tree stands about 60 centimetres tall – big enough to fill a windowsill or a mantelpiece, small enough for a side table. It runs on USB or on three AA batteries. “So you can put it where you want it,” Torquil says, “not where the plug socket is.”

And then there are the hearts. Every tree comes with 18 of them – in red, champagne gold, silver and blush pink, some glossy, some glittered. They hang on little loops and come off in a second. “Catriona’s rule,” Torquil says with a grin. “Nine for the people you love, and nine for the people who love you.” Many customers leave them on from Advent through Valentine’s Day. Others take them off after New Year and let the bare white birch glow all winter long.

“Some families have put the same birch in the window for 25 Christmases”

Torquil pulls an old biscuit tin from under the workbench. Inside: Christmas cards, hundreds of them, held together with elastic bands. “From customers,” he says. “Some have written every year since the nineties.” He pulls out one from 2003: “Dear Mr Rennie, your little birch has been in our front window every Christmas since 1998. My husband passed in March. I switched it on anyway. It still glows exactly like the first night.”

The reason is simple: patience instead of speed. A factory turns out a light-up tree in seconds. Torquil takes about five hours for one. He bends every branch, wires and checks every light, and tests each tree for a whole evening before it leaves the workshop. “If one light flickers, it stays here,” he says. “No exceptions.”

The back of the workshop: shelf after shelf of finished trees. They are the last ones Torquil will ever build.

Why this Christmas is the last one

On 20 December, Torquil will sweep the workshop one last time, let the wood burner go out and switch off the light. “There’s nobody to take it over,” he says. “Our son is in Aberdeen, he has his own life. And you don’t learn this from a video. It took me years before the wire did what I wanted.”

On the shelves at the back of the workshop there are exactly 274 trees left. His final collection. Torquil does not want them to end up in boxes in the loft. So he made a decision: every last tree goes out at a clear special price – half of what he normally charges at the workshop door. “I don’t need to get rich off the last ones,” he says. “I want them in windows. I want people to walk past a house at night and see one glowing.”

And for the first time in 31 years, they are going online. His granddaughter Eilidh (25) talked him into it. “For three decades I told everybody: if you want a tree, come to the workshop,” Torquil laughs. “Eilidh said, Grandad, half your customers have moved to Edinburgh and Glasgow. She set it all up on the computer. I build, she clicks.” He shakes his head. “First time online, and the last time too. That’s the deal I made with Catriona.”

What sets Torquil’s Heart Birch trees apart:

Torquil builds the trees, Catriona chooses the 18 hearts for every one and tries them on before they are packed. For 31 years, not one tree has left without her.

What customers say about their Heart Birch

“The first present I ever gave my mum that left her speechless”

Alison M. (49) from Stirling gave her mum a Heart Birch last Christmas. “Mum is 81 and has everything. I always end up buying her slippers,” she says. “When she opened the box she didn’t say a word. She just started hanging the hearts, one by one, and told me about the little tree she had in her window as a girl. It’s been on her kitchen table every night since. She says it keeps her company.”

The first heart goes on: for many families, a Heart Birch is the present that comes out every December.

Where can you get Torquil’s Heart Birch trees?

Online, Torquil’s trees are only available through County Craft, an online shop that works with small, independent makers. Eilidh looks after her grandad’s little corner of the shop. Only there will you get the original Heart Birch trees from Torquil’s workshop in Grantown-on-Spey. Mass-produced light-up birches have long been sold on Amazon and in the big shops. From across the room, some of them may look similar. Up close – and after the first winter – they have nothing to do with Torquil’s work.

Only until 20 December – then the workshop goes dark

“By the 20th I’d like every last tree to be standing in somebody’s window,” Torquil says, and wraps a finished birch in tissue paper. “After that, it’s really over.” He looks out at the snow on the Square. “Thirty-one Christmases. Not bad for a linesman.”

If you would like one of the original Heart Birch trees from Torquil’s final collection, don’t wait too long. Since word got around that this is the last batch, the orders have been coming in faster than Eilidh can pack them. With the special price and the Christmas rush, the remaining 274 trees are not expected to last until the 20th.

It is the last chance to bring a real handmade Heart Birch into your home – before the light in the old stable in Grantown goes out for good.

Our verdict

The Heart Birch is the kind of Christmas piece people fall for the moment it lights up – and then bring out again every December for years. It is built by hand in a little workshop in the Highlands, it glows warm and soft, it goes anywhere thanks to batteries or USB, and the 18 hearts make it feel like a little family tradition from the very first evening.

A piece with real heart: carefully made, thought through, and with 31 winters of experience in every branch. Thank you, Torquil – and thank you, Catriona!

Readers love their Heart Birch trees

Photos sent in by readers.