60 minutes, eight saplings, one plinth....
Chester school teacher Tamasine Croston will be queen of hearts on the Anthony Gormley ‘Fourth Plinth’ in London’s Trafalgar Square between 9 and 10 am on Thursday (August 27) as she deals a special hand on behalf of national woodland charity the Woodland Trust.
Tamasine, who teaches at Oldfield Primary School, is staging a game of Play Your Cards Right - with giant cards and eight native tree saplings as prize give-aways.
She is even breaking into her holiday in France to keep her date on the plinth, wearing a Dorothy Perkins ‘Grass is Greener’ t-shirt to mark the Trust’s High Street corporate partnership.
Tamasine, who confesses to a bad case of nerves when she heard her application had been successful, said: “I wanted to do it for a charity which I believed in, make people aware of the Woodland Trust and make it fun as well!”
Her sister Bryony will be on the ground to help with the card game and handing out the holly and cherry tree saplings.
Tamasine is a long time member and supporter of the Woodland Trust’s award-winning Nature Detectives initiative, and has enthused her pupils with a love of nature and trees along the way - with two garden projects at school and pupils using the Nature Detectives weekly activity sheets...
Trust head of woodland creation James Lonsdale praised Tamasine’s efforts. “Anyone who illustrates how important is it for us to plant more trees is doing a great job.”
“The Trust has just held a successful and high profile woodland creation reception at the House of Commons and now the word has spread to Trafalgar Square. It’s great.”
Trees are a hot topic within London, with Mayor Boris Johnson’s new environment plan suggesting that an extra two million trees should be planted in London to combat rising temperatures over future decades.
Live plinth streaming is available on www.oneandanother.co.uk. Sky Arts runs a weekly Plinth highlights programme every Friday evening at 7pm.
2400 people have been selected at random from more than 298,000 applicants across the UK to occupy the empty Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square.
Notes to editors
For media enquiries contact:
The Woodland Trust Press Office on 01476 581121, email: media@woodlandtrust.org.uk
The Woodland Trust:
The Woodland Trust is the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity. It has 300,000 members and supporters.
The Trust has three key aims: i) to enable the creation of more native woods and places rich in trees ii) to protect native woods, trees and their wildlife for the future iii) to inspire everyone to enjoy and value woods and trees
Established in 1972, the Woodland Trust now has over 1,000 sites in its care covering approximately 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres). Access to its sites is free.