Spider wrote in
:


When you do start pruning, you first need to cut out the three 'Ds':
dead, dying and diseased growth. Then any crossing growth, that is,
any inward-growing branches which spoil the shape of the tree and also
increase the possibilty of fungal disease due to restricting air
movement. Also cut out any branch which rubs on another and may cause
wounding, which will subsequently let in disease.

The other useful thing you could do is drop heavy hints for a good
pruning guide for Christmas. I recommend the RHS Pruning & Training
guide by Christopher Brickell & David Joyce. It's a Dorling Kindersley
publication, ISBN 1-4053-0073-6.

Hope that helps a bit.

It helps massively. Thank you, Spider! Apologies for the delayed reply.
Your advice told be a lot that I hadn't managed to find elswhere.

Thank you again!

JD