Festive tradition ‘We’ve been selling trees from our home for 60 years‘

AMAN and his family have been selling Christmas trees from their house in Bristol for 60 years.

Generations of Bristolians visit the house every Christmas to buy a tree, but also to talk to owner John James, one of Bristol’s real local eccentric characters.

The long-distance lorry driver, who owns a nearby field where he grows the trees, inherited the tradition from his late father.

The men in the family are all called John James. His father was John Ernest James, he is John Edward James, and his son is John Elliot James.

He said: “Up until the late 1970s, I would drive all the way to Belgium and Holland to pick up the Christmas trees. I would buy them for £2, and sell them for a fiver.”

The James family owned all the land around the house, before it was sold under a compulsory purchase order during slum clearances in the 1950s.

They kept one field, a six-acre site across the road. There they started to grow their own Christmas trees to supplement the others they collected from Scotland.

“We grown them in the field. We sell them in there too, but we are ideally positioned for passing traffic here. So most people come to the house,” said John.

The house on Parkwall Road, in Warmley, is adorned with decorations. A giant father Christmas stands on top of the shed, another one greets you at the door.

“We do it for the kids, really. They love it, we like to make it a fun experience and that. We also have some giant nutcrackers we put up, and all the lights at night. It makes it nice and Christmassy,” John said.

John James talks fondly of different families that would come to buy their trees in the early days, and some of their grandchildren come now.

He said: “Most of them have died now. But their sons, daughters, and grandchildren come every year. It’s a tradition.”

The family are very proud of John James.

Grandson Dann Jefferies said: “My Grandad loves a bit of banter with the customers, and regularly sees the same people coming back to get their trees each year. I am sure they have had children of previous customers that now come to get their tree, now they have grown up.”

Granddaughter Stacey Andrews said: “You won’t meet anyone more special. Nice that people will see how hard my Gramps and Nan work to bring a festive spirit to thousands of families at christmas.”