How I was inspired to help make a difference

TREES have always enchanted me. As a boy, I would often climb them and while away many an hour in their branches, although I probably spent more time falling out of them. But the bruises mattered little, because there is surely no better place to be than in a tree.

My five children fortunately share my delight, and the younger ones often come home proudly bearing leaves they have found.

But they are also very aware of the environmental crisis, which they learn about at school, and how the loss of trees worldwide is having such a devastating impact.

So when I read about the Mail’s plan to plant a thousand orchards in a thousand schools across Britain, I immediately decided to support it, to take this opportunity to make a real difference.

My company is giving a donation of £100,000 to fund this fantastic campaign. I hope that it will get people thinking about what all of us can do, and I hope that other businesses will follow suit.

I’m well aware that my own restaurant business, with kitchens across the country, leaves a carbon footprint. In short, we take from the environment. So this is an opportunity to give something back, to improve it.

It saddens me when I pass schools every day on my way to work that are surrounded by concrete, with not a tree in sight.

It would be wonderful if we could change this, and to make trees part of the everyday lives of more children. Sadly many schools are in areas with dangerous levels of pollution, but trees act as natural filters, reducing the impact of pollution

Planting them in schools will not only improve the air children breathe, it will encourage children to think about the environment, and the challenges facing the planet.

It is a very practical way of teaching them about the importance of looking after nature. By watching the trees grow, and even helping look after them, they will learn to value them.

And the orchards will eventually produce fruit, which in turn will teach children how to grow food and show them that if you nurture nature, it will surely nurture you.

Recently I took my younger children to see the tree whose conkers I used to collect as a boy. There was not a conker in sight. It was quite a shock. Pollution and other factors had taken their toll.

This is why it is so necessary to be part of the Mail’s tree-planting campaign. In a few years’ time I hope to visit some of the schools where the orchards we have funded are growing, to see environments transformed by trees and children playing among them.