Pruning old apple and plum trees

I've looked in my RHS pruning book, and it says prune your apple trees in winter by cutting out dead wood, congested and crossing branches and unproductive branches. You should apparently remove quite large sections of branches to open up the tree. Plum trees should be checked now for dead wood while the leaves are on. Otherwise, leave pruning until next summer to avoid your trees getting canker and/or silver leaf! Then you can remove branches again to open up the tree, and look for outward facing buds to cut back to. Warning for both types of tree, don't cut off too many branches at once (It says) Hope this helps.

Thank you Spitzhenry. I'll report back. Graham