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Having bought a cottage (with forge attached) in the Suffolk village of Claydon, I decided I would be the village blacksmith. Total lack of experience did not deter me - I went on a one-week course to learn how to do it and taught myself the rest. Within 3 years I became the first British blacksmith to win the coveted Organisers' Award at the Lindau Exhibition in Germany. The winning piece (an Escher-like table called Metamorphosis) was afterwards bought by the Victoria and Albert Museum.
I exhibited widely during this period and was honoured to be asked to demonstrate at blacksmiths' conferences in the UK and USA. The work is represented in public and private collections at home and abroad. I put down much of my success to the fact that I was self-taught. If you don't know what you can't do, you can do anything!
Believing that blacksmithing needed to be done on a large scale, I started to contact architects and gradually built up a clientele including most of the best architects and landscape architects in the UK. By the time I decided it was time for a change, the company was turning over around £1M per year and continues successfully to date.
The book illustrates work from this whole period and is available at £32 (about $54) plus postage and packing. Click below to order.
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