It was with very great sadness that we heard yesterday of the death of Jim McCurrach on Sunday 15th Jan. He was without doubt one of the nicest men we knew ! Never a bad word said about anyone.

He taught a number of workshops here at the nursery in the first decade of the 2000’s. In the above photos he was guiding us through his ideas on using grafting in bonsai creation, particularly using Scots pine scions to shorten leggy branches on raw material. At that time very few folks in the UK were trying this technique.

He was also a pioneer of collecting high quality yamadori from his neighbouring landscapes, he was the first person to find the now famous Scots pine collecting site that subsequently produced a number of great UK Scots pine bonsai. The other species he most frequently collected was J larch. He would sell his raw material at a number of UK shows during that period.

He loved participating in the BSA shohin shows that we hosted here during that period, coming down in his campervan with is lovely wife Mary, and spending the show weekend with us.

That afore mention lovely Mary McCurrach, smiling as she always was ! seen here with Willowbog stalwart Len Gilbert. Our condolences go out to Mary and their daughter Judy.

Jim’s visits to Willowbog sometimes coincided with events we were participating in elsewhere. This is Jim ‘ helping ‘ me with sales at some event or other !

He is a loss to the UK bonsai scene and we will miss him.