Thank you Steve- - I was wondering why the younger beech trees already growing around my garden (presumably having grown from fallen nuts or ones buried by squirrels?) did not have the deep copper colour of the fallen one- - is there some way of encouraging this to happen or is it just random chance?
Our winters have not been so cold in recent times- - 40 years ago I had to cover the car windscreen with newspaper from November to February (the days before screen defrosting sprays!) but the screen is rarely frozen nowadays.