Dead leaves are underfoot, on urban pavements, in rural fields and wherever we do not want them in gardens. In London we kick away leaves fallen from plane trees, and everywhere we rake leaves briskly off our lawns. We do not go slowly and look at them closely.

Slow walking and close looking helped the greatest botanical artist in my lifetime to turn flowers and dead leaves into masterpieces. Rory McEwen died in 1982, aged 50, but his reputation and influence as a botanical artist have grown with each retrospective exhibition. An excellent show of his work is currently touring the US, from Charleston to Florida and then Chicago from May 17 to August 17 next year.

Until December 15 it is in the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, where it is admirably presented against high white walls. For its opening, undergraduates of this women-only college wore flower-themed dresses and decorations, a new twist to McEwen’s impact. Next year a smaller exhibition will begin at London’s Garden Museum. Meanwhile a fine exhibition catalogue is on sale, Rory McEwen: A New Perspective on Nature, beautifully illustrated with support from the Mellon family’s Oak Spring Garden Foundation. It is graced with a foreword by Ruth Stiff, curator of international exhibitions at Kew, and an exceptional essay by Martyn Rix, botanist and expert in botanical art, who was a friend and guide to McEwen for many years.

McEwen was born into the British upper class, spending a wartime childhood in the grounds of Marchmont House, a mansion on the Scottish borders. He was the fourth of seven children, a spur to his own achievements. He became a fine musician, singing and playing the guitar, a talent that predominated in his undergraduate years at Cambridge. He profoundly admired Lead Belly, the legendary 12-string guitarist and singer from the American South, then little known in Britain. His musical interrelationships are a subject in themselves, from his meeting with Lead Belly’s widow in New York, to his appearances on an admired BBC TV show in the early 1960s, and the company he kept at his house in Chelsea. There, the Beatle George Harrison first met and learned from Ravi Shankar, the Indian sitar-player, a visitor housed by McEwen and his family.

McEwen began to paint flowers at the age of eight thanks to his French governess: the exhibition includes a leaf he painted then, already notably

Guitar playing requires precision and persistence. They are qualities that botanical art needs too. McEwen recalled that he began to paint flowers at the age of eight thanks to his French governess: the exhibition includes a leaf he painted then, already notably. At Eton College, he was lucky to be guided by the art master Wilfrid Blunt, a skilled botanical artist and historian of the subject. Crucially he made McEwen aware of the long history of the genre, from early herbals and religious books to the great master Pierre-Joseph Redouté and others. McEwen looked at hundreds of prints and originals of their work and studied their techniques. His close analysis of these forerunners distinguishes his art from simple illustration. So do the depth of his eye and the material on which he painted.

“I have never really been interested in botanical illustration per se,” he wrote in older age to Blunt, “but rather in that moment when painting starts to breathe poetry.” Viewers of his work need to look at it with this moment in mind. Botanical art aims at exact representation and is distinct from flower painting, whether Monet’s water lilies or Cedric Morris’s irises. McEwen saw exactness as a gate to meaning.

Most of his painting is in watercolour on vellum, the least forgiving of white surfaces, one rarely used in the 1960s. With its help he contrived a luminous effect, especially in the leaves of plants he painted. For hours on end, he worked with extreme discipline in an attic or studio, listening to music through headphones, his guitar propped against the wall, taking second place from 1965 onwards. He would emerge with his charm and energy unimpaired and engage smoothly with his family and many guests.

In due course he travelled east, not only to Japan which fascinated him and where exhibitions of his work were greatly admired. He loved spending time in Afghanistan, India and Bhutan, where he soon needed a butterfly net: the queen of Bhutan ordered one to be made for him from a piece of her mosquito netting. In the 1970s he kept small images of Buddha on his desk, befitting his contemplative eye while painting so meticulously. He looked and thought deeply.

In 1958, he married Romana von Hofmannsthal, an Astor on her mother’s side. The spectre of an office job receded and he could play, sing and paint as he wished. Like the folk songs he performed, some of the flowers that he presented had roots in popular culture. To find living old-fashioned tulips he joined the Wakefield and North of England Tulip Society. In 1962, with his wife Romana’s help, he had his first exhibition in New York which was admiringly reviewed for its “grace and exactitude” in The New York Times.

It drew two remarkable visitors, Bunny Mellon, hyper-rich collector of botanical books and art, and through her, Jackie Kennedy, with whom McEwen, aged 30, discussed his tulips. Mellon then bought his masterly painting of four carnations, rendered from plants from Allwoods nursery in Sussex, and one of tulips from the Wakefield Society. She sent them to the Kennedys at the White House where they hung in private rooms. Ever a thoughtful correspondent, McEwen wrote to the Wakefield Society, telling them of his delight that “so long as the White House stands the Wakefield Society’s tulips will be hanging on the wall”. Actually they were loans from Mellon, not gifts, so they are in the exhibition with other treasures from her Garden Foundation.

In Massachusetts, I admired a follower’s picture of Tulipa “Rory McEwen”, violet on white and difficult to grow well. I then returned to the entrance. The security guard remarked that I was not the first visitor from England: a lady had just come specially from Wakefield in the north. How apt, as the two of us relate to two of the artist’s supreme subjects. In 1977, McEwen went with Rix to see a wild meadow of purple and white fritillaries in Hampshire and soon after, we met socially. He noted in his diary that I had once told him that it “is the one flower it is impossible to paint”. Before long, with habitual kindness, he sent me his reply, a perfectly painted Fritillaria meleagris. Others, taller and bigger, are in the current show.

“A lot goes on in a dying leaf”, he wrote to his niece, “you’d be surprised”. A superb series of paintings, “True Facts From Nature”, included one such leaf in 1973. From late 1977 he excelled with them, placing them carefully off centre on white vellum, his considered response to the surrounding minimalism of modern art. He saw them not as dying, but as “showing the marks of life and experience,” like “tiny condensations of the places from which they came”. He noted exactly where he found these late models, leaves with addresses in New York, Chelsea or the playing fields of Eton. Diagnosed with cancer, then a brain tumour, he wrote that he was making a connection between the “experienced” object and human thoughts and feelings and in that sense his work was indeed “abstract”. I have just examined a sycamore leaf on my path. Through his final masterpieces I see so much more of what is going on there.

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THE Winter Fuel Payment is paid at two rates with older people receiving £100 more than those closer to the state pension age.

The benefit is paid to help those over the state pension age of 66 with their energy bills over the winter months.

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It is worth up to £300 and was previously paid universally to all pensioners.

But from this year it will be means tested and only those on certain benefits will be eligible to receive funds.

Those on Pension Credit, Income Support, Tax Credits and Universal Credit remain eligible for the payment, but 10million are set to miss out.

The amount people receive through the payment depends on when they were born.

It is worth £200 for eligible households where all residents were born  between 23 September 1944 and 22 September 1958, or £300 for eligible households where someone is aged over 80.

To qualify for this year’s benefit, you must be 66 or over and have had an active claim for one of the qualifying benefits during what’s known as the “qualifying week” – this year, from September 16 to 22.

However, Pension Credit claims can be backdated by three months, so those who think they may be eligible for the benefit still have time to make a claim.

As long as claims are made by December 21, they will be able to access this year’s winter fuel allowance.

The changes to the winter fuel allowance have prompted faced a backlash from charities and campaigners since it was first announced.

Its impact was revealed when thousands of Sun readers flooded The Sun’s Winter Fuel SOS helpline earlier this month, looking for help to hang on to the payment.

The Sun has since launched a free tool to help you check whether you will get the winter fuel payment this year.

Even if you’re not eligible for the Winter Fuel Payment you may still be able to get £150 off your energy costs through the Warm Home Discount scheme.

There are two Warm Home Discount schemes – one for England and Wales, and one for Scotland.

Those living in England and Wales do not need to apply for the scheme, but those living in Scotland do.

Between now and December, the government will issue letters to households that qualify for the scheme.

However, to be eligible for the discount households must have had an active claim for any of the following benefits on Sunday, August 11:

There may also be help available through the Household Support Fund, which is administered through local authorities.

The fund is worth £421million and aims to help with gas, electricity, and food during the winter months.

To find out what support you could access contact your local council.

What is the Winter Fuel Payment?

Consumer reporter Sam Walker explains all you need to know about the payment.

The Winter Fuel Payment is an annual tax-free benefit designed to help cover the cost of heating through the colder months.

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Most who are eligible receive the payment automatically.

Those who qualify are usually told via a letter sent in October or November each year.

If you do meet the criteria but don’t automatically get the Winter Fuel Payment, you will have to apply on the government’s website.

You’ll qualify for a Winter Fuel Payment this winter if:

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• you were born on or before September 23, 1958
• you lived in the UK for at least one day during the week of September 16 to 22, 2024, known as the “qualifying week”
• you receive Pension Credit, Universal Credit, ESA, JSA, Income Support, Child Tax Credit or Working Tax Credit

If you did not live in the UK during the qualifying week, you might still get the payment if both the following apply:

• you live in Switzerland or a EEA country
• you have a “genuine and sufficient” link with the UK social security system, such as having lived or worked in the UK and having a family in the UK

But there are exclusions – you can’t get the payment if you live in Cyprus, France, Gibraltar, Greece, Malta, Portugal or Spain.

This is because the average winter temperature is higher than the warmest region of the UK.

You will also not qualify if you:

• are in hospital getting free treatment for more than a year
• need permission to enter the UK and your granted leave states that you can not claim public funds
• were in prison for the whole “qualifying week”
• lived in a care home for the whole time between 26 June to 24 September 2023, and got Pension Credit, Income Support, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance or income-related Employment and Support Allowance

Payments are usually made between November and December, with some made up until the end of January the following year.

CHECK IF YOU QUALIFY FOR PENSION CREDIT

Pension credit tops up your weekly income to £218.15 if you are single or to £332.95 if you have a partner and can give you access to the winter fuel allowance.

This is known as “guarantee credit”.

If your income is lower than this, you’re very likely to be eligible for the benefit.

However, if your income is slightly higher, you might still be eligible for pension credit if you have a disability, you care for someone, you have savings or you have housing costs.

You could get an extra £81.50 a week if you have a disability or claim any of the following:

• Attendance allowance
• The middle or highest rate from the care component of disability living allowance (DLA)
• The daily living component of personal independence payment (PIP)
• Armed forces independence payment
• The daily living component of adult disability payment (ADP) at the standard or enhanced rate.

You could get the “savings credit” part of pension credit if both of the following apply:

• You reached State Pension age before April 6, 2016
• You saved some money for retirement, for example, a personal or workplace pension

This part of pension credit is worth £17.01 for single people or £19.04 for couples.

Pension credit opens the door to other support, including housing benefits, cost of living payments, council tax reductions and the winter fuel payment.

Claims for pension credit also open doors to a number of freebies and discounts.

For example, pension credit claimants over 75 qualify for a free TV licence worth up to £169.50 a year.

Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing money-sm@news.co.uk.

Plus, you can join our Sun Money Chats and Tips Facebook group to share your tips and stories

SWEDEN’S northernmost city has been named Europe’s most underrated destination for a white Christmas.

Located in Swedish Lapland, Kiruna is a mining town that’s home to just under 20,000 people – and it’s said to be the best place for Brits to experience a white Christmas.

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Ferry operator DFDS analysed 23 years of snowfall data across a whopping 164 destinations in Europe.

The operator cross-analysed snowfall data with the least-searched destinations on Google to find the best place to see snow on Christmas Day.

Kiruna, Sweden‘s northernmost city, was crowned the winner with a 70 per cent chance of snow on December 25.

The Swedish city only had 100 Google searches per month, with only 12 per cent of Brits surveyed aware of the Swedish city.

Located in northern Sweden, Kiruna is an outdoor enthusiast’s dream destination from its deep forests, lakes, rivers and mountains.

The nearby Abisko National Park is ideal for hiking and experiencing the Midnight Sun in summer.

It is also a good destination to see the Northern Lights, which are often visible on winter nights – although its appearance is never guaranteed.

Other attractions include an Ice Hotel and the Esrange Space Centre, which offers insights into space research.

Additionally, Kiruna Church, one of Sweden’s largest wooden buildings, is worth a visit for its beautiful architecture.

Although the location of Kiruna Church is set to change next year when the entire city is relocated two miles south.

Kiruna sits above the largest known deposit of the rare elements, which are used to make electric car batteries and wind turbines – this is roughly 80 per cent of the European Union‘s supply.

However, after years of mining, the land has been deformed and cracks have even started to appearing in the town.

This is why the entire town is set to be shifted two miles away, with each building set to be relocated.

It is hoped that the ambitious project will be finished by 2026, with Kiruna Church set to be moved at some point next year.

Kiruna is also the traditional home of the indigenous Sámi people.

The land of the Sámi people stretches across the very north of Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia.

Visitors to Kiruna can learn more about the Sámi people through a range of activities like reindeer herding.

Kiruna has its own airport – Kiruna Airport.

Flights from Kiruna Airport only operate to Stockholm, which means Brits will need to change in the country’s capital to reach the arctic city.

Sun Online Travel have found return fares in January from London to Kiruna for £180.

Meanwhile, these are the six best European cities to visit in 2024.

And this “timeless” European city serves as a great double for Rome.

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Prudential Financial has recruited a top Morgan Stanley executive to take over its $1.4tn asset management arm as it seeks to expand the division’s international reach and offerings in alternative assets.

Jacques Chappuis will join as PGIM’s chief executive in May, replacing David Hunt, who is retiring after a 13-year stint that saw assets under management double and the firm become a top-five player in US active fixed income and real estate investing.

Chappuis, who also previously worked at Citigroup and Carlyle, has been the co-head of Morgan Stanley Investment Management since January.

Prudential wants to double PGIM’s contribution to the group’s earnings from 12 to 24 per cent over the next seven years, said Andy Sullivan, Prudential’s head of international and investment management, who led the search for Hunt’s replacement.

PGIM, currently ranked 15th in the world by AUM, hopes to capitalise on the growing trend for large clients to do more business with fewer providers. It is also seeking to bulk up further in private assets, which carry higher fees, and win mandates for multi-asset solutions from other insurers as well as pension funds and endowments.

“We are at an inflection point both as an industry and for us as a business,” Sullivan said. “This was a very difficult search. We needed someone who had deep experience across asset classes.”

Chappuis “is a humble, decisive and determined leader,” Sullivan said

PGIM’s alternatives business rose by more than 50 per cent to $336bn under Hunt’s leadership. The group made several small acquisitions and was looking for others that would expand its global reach and give it more heft in areas such as infrastructure equity, Sullivan said.

After Chappuis’s arrival, Hunt will stay on as PGIM chair until July to ensure a smooth transition.

Morgan Stanley told staff late last month that Chappuis was stepping down, leaving Ben Huneke as the sole head of investment management. They had been running the division together since January, when the elevation of Ted Pick to chief executive was accompanied by a broader reorganisation.

“I’m proud to become PGIM’s next president and CEO, leading an incredible team through its next chapter of growth,” Chappuis said in a statement. “I look forward to building upon the firm’s successes.”

Ninety One has announced that it will adopt the ‘Sustainability Impact’ label on its Global Environment Fund from 1 December.

The firm claims the fund will become one of the first to use this label under the Financial Conduct Authority’s Sustainability Disclosure Requirements (SDR) regime.

The fund is managed by Deirdre Cooper, head of sustainable equity, and Graeme Baker, co-portfolio manager.

The global equity portfolio provides exposure to the multi-decade structural growth opportunity from decarbonisation, driven by the need to transition to net zero.

The fund focuses on identifying businesses whose structural growth is driven by decarbonisation across three key pathways: renewable energy, resource efficiency and electrification.

Cooper said: “As an active, global investment manager, Ninety One’s goal is to provide long-term investment returns for its clients while making a positive difference to people and the planet.

“The Global Environment Fund’s unconstrained and focused approach, combined with a long-term investment horizon and active engagement, is a powerful way to invest in decarbonisation.

“The adoption of the ‘Sustainability Impact’ label by the Global Environment Fund is testament to our commitment to have a quantifiable carbon saving impact, enabling the transition to a net zero world.”

Ninety One, established in South Africa in 1991 as Investec Asset Management, is a global investment manager managing £127.4bn in assets.

The firm said it will be writing to the fund’s shareholders shortly with details of the updates to the prospectus, which are being made to align the relevant disclosures with the SDR.

The FCA’s sustainability rules for firms come into force on 2 December. However, the regulator recently offered firms flexibility and extended the deadline to next April.

The sustainability rules are designed to protect consumers by ensuring sustainable products and services they are sold are accurately described.

This will include model portfolios, customised portfolios and/or bespoke portfolio management services.

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More companies say they will use salary sacrifice schemes to structure their staff pension arrangements to reduce the impact of tax changes announced at the Budget.

Businesses including J Sainsbury, JD Wetherspoon and BT have this week attacked chancellor Rachel Reeves’ plans to raise up to £25bn a year by increasing employers’ national insurance contributions from next April.

The move has triggered a flurry of interest in salary sacrifice schemes, in which employees give up a portion of their salary in exchange for their employer paying those funds directly into their pension. 

The arrangement, well established among larger employers, but much less common among smaller businesses, enables employees to pay less income tax as they receive a lower headline salary. However, as employers’ national insurance is not levied on staff pension contributions, companies now have more of an incentive to use these schemes.

In the wake of the Budget, more than one in five owners of small and medium-sized businesses said they were now “more inclined” to use salary sacrifice arrangements on pension contributions, according to a survey of about 900 UK companies commissioned by the Global Payroll Association.

From April, the salary threshold at which employers start paying NI will be cut from £9,100 to £5,000, and the tax rate will rise from 13.8 to 15 per cent.

Nick Bustin, employment tax director at chartered accountant Haysmacintyre, said conversations with clients in the days since the Budget had “almost exclusively been around pensions salary sacrifice”.

While some smaller firms will be able to use the enlarged employment allowance to mitigate NI increases, not all of them will satisfy the criteria. “We’re talking to low headcount tech companies, health sector organisations and the education sector,” he said.

Smaller firms have traditionally shied away from such schemes because of the complication it adds to their payroll process, but advisers said this was now likely to change.

“Historically it’s not been worth the hassle for them,” said Robert Salter, director at business advisory firm Blick Rothenberg, adding: “What I suspect is that smaller companies over the next few weeks will look at salary sacrifice.”

Under the current auto-enrolment pension rules, the total minimum contribution for a qualifying pension scheme is 8 per cent of an employee’s earnings — 3 per cent of which must be paid by the employer. All 8 per cent — or higher depending on the pension policy — is paid by the employer when an employee uses a pension salary sacrifice scheme.

“A critical question in all cases is what happens to the employer NI costs that are saved: generous employers give it all back to the employee in extra pension contributions but this isn’t always the case,” said Tom McPhail, pensions specialist at consultancy The Lang Cat.

Steven Leigh, associate partner at professional services firm Aon, calculates that a small company with 10 employees each earning £35,000 would suffer a £9,200 rise in its NI bill following the Budget changes.

But by paying 5 per cent of its employees’ income into pensions instead of wages, the company would save £2,625, offsetting about 30 per cent of the increase in employer NICs. The employees would save about £140 a year in employee NICs.

“The majority of companies with 100-plus employees would offer this already,” Leigh said. “For those firms that don’t offer it, it’s become even more of a no-brainer.”

In assessing the merits of salary sacrifice schemes, advisers warn that employers must be careful not to lower employees’ cash earnings below the minimum wage.

“It’s a big risk that firms need to consider,” said Neil Carberry, chief executive of the Recruitment & Employment Confederation, a trade body for recruiters. “Minimum wage is up 26 per cent in the past three years — salaries above £20,000 can be swept up.”

Employees should also be mindful of their statutory maternity pay, Leigh adds. “Statutory maternity pay is linked to salary at a particular point in time. So if somebody were to be using salary sacrifice, their salary might fall below a certain level, which might mean they have a lower level of statutory maternity pay further down the line.”

For higher earning staff, the benefits of salary sacrifice include being able to navigate frozen income tax thresholds by saving more into a pension. Staff on the cusp of the £60,000 threshold, where Child Benefit starts to be withdrawn, could save more into their pension and keep more of their benefits. Similarly, parents on the cusp of £100,000 could be able to keep valuable childcare benefits including tax-free childcare and “free” hours of childcare.

Additional reporting by Claer Barrett