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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: The Meaning of Trees: Series 2

The Essay: The Meaning of Trees: Series 2: Part 1: The Meaning of Trees: Pine

Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

The Meaning of Trees

Part 1 Part 1: The Meaning of Trees: Pine

The Meaning of Trees: Pine

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, The Meaning of Trees, Series 2, The Meaning of Trees: PineClose menu

Professor Fiona Stafford on the workhorse of the forest, the pine tree.

Professor Fiona Stafford explores the workhorse of the forest, the pine tree, which has been a British native for over 4000 years.

Essay One: Pine
Fiona Stafford, Professor of Literature at Somerville College Oxford, explores the symbolism, importance, topicality and surprises of five trees common in the UK. In this second series, she explores our ambiguous relationship with trees.

Pine is a big native Scot and economically the world's most important tree, not just the obvious uses in the furniture, building and paper industries, but also its medicinal properties in treating bronchitis and pneumonia for millennia and its resin used for turpentine, adhesives, wax, waterproofing and fragrances. It has been a British native tree for over 4000 years and yet its modernity is also assured as the tree that furnished the world. Forests of native pine were plentiful but there was an increase in temperature some 5000 years ago meaning that pines were driven out by deciduous trees which took over. Pine is also responsible for fuelling the industrial revolution, along with coal, and this along with its presence in cheap household articles gives a sad image to a huge, majestic, truly ancient British tree that has had its dignity stripped by the modern world, along with its bark.

Producer, Turan Ali
A Bona Broadcasting production for BBC Radio 3.

The Essay: The Meaning of Trees

Series 2

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Fiona Stafford explores the symbolism, importance, topicality and surprises of trees

Professor Fiona Stafford of Oxford University explores the symbolism, importance, topicality and surprises about different trees, as well as our ambiguous relationship with them.

Professor Fiona Stafford of Oxford University continues to explore the symbolism, importance, topicality and surprises about different trees, as well as our ambiguous relationship with them.

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The Meaning of Trees

Series 2

Part 1: The Meaning of Trees: Pine

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