After being voted Tree of the Year 2024, an old Oak has promoted the Scottish ceilidh band Skipinnish from stardom to mega stardom

Woodland Trust’s Tree of the Year vote was won this year by a Sessile Oak tree called Skipinnish, after a Scottish ceilidh band.
Under the tree’s management, they are now the most famous band in history, and it couldn’t have happened to nicer lads.

However, our investigation into the Woodland Trust’s Tree of the Year shortlist has revealed something too suspicious to be a coincidence.
Do you notice anything?

Wood Land Trust 2024 Tree of the Year Finalists

• Skipinnish Oak
• Queen Elizabeth Oak
• Darwin Oak
• Elephant Oak
• Tea Party Oak
• Gregynog Oak
• Bowthorpe Oak
• Capon Oak
• King John Oak
• Marton Oak
• The Michael Oak
• Castle Archdale Oak

Apart from the fact that the band Skipinnish is more popular than Queen Elizabeth II and Charles Darwin having a tea party with an elephant, which everyone already knew, all the trees on the list are Oak trees.

Now, England is the land of Oak, Ash, and Thorn (as in the Rudyard Kipling poem, not the rocking Coloradan heavy metal band of the same name).
Ash has been under the weather lately, dealing with a spot of the Ash dieback plague, and while Hawthorn trees such as the Hethel Old Thorn in Norfolk can get reasonably old and funky looking, they will never have the massive brooding presence of an Oak Ancient.

But not one Yew tree on the list? Nary a Scot’s pine to be seen? Not a single soaring Beech tree to make the fix less obvious?

We aren’t making any legal claims here, but I smell Big Oak money behind this.