I was born on the 17th January 1968 in Marske-by-the-Sea, which was at the time in North Yorkshire.

I was moved aged 9 to Somerset where my parents planned to become self-sufficient market gardeners. After a largely unhappy schooling I gained good ‘O’ levels and school prizes for Mathematics and Woodwork. Going on to get spectacularly good ‘A’ level results I set off for Manchester University confident of shaking up the world of mathematics. I soon found that success in the discipline required a lot of hard very dull work and that others had more natural talent. Calculating that woodwork might provide a more spiritually rewarding career than accountancy, after graduating I set about getting the practical and business skills to become a furniture maker.

I studied furniture at Manchester College of Art and Technology for two years during a short spell when the course was run by some very talented tutors. With a maturity I lacked at university I worked very hard, learned a great deal and developed a unique personal approach to wood as a material.

One of the talented tutors at MANCAT was Garry Olson and on completing the course I was offered bench space in Garry’s own workshop. We shared the space for the next 6 years, I learned a lot from Garry and we collaborateded on some interesting projects. We organised a number of joint exhibitions and these lead us eventually to the idea of the onetree project, a plan to make the best possible use of a single native oak tree. Onetree became a national touring exhibition of work by 75 artists and makers, a book, a website and an inspiration for similar projects world-wide.

I moved up to Scotland in 1998 and set up a small home workshop. During the course of the onetree project, which ran until the autumn of 2002, I produced only a small volume of work for private customers. Since then I have moved to a much larger building where I can work on a wide range of projects for indoors and outdoors. Discovering a lack of exhibiting opportunities in Scotland as a whole I became involved with the Scottish Furniture Makers Association, becoming secretary in 2003. The association now holds an annual exhibition as part of the Edinburgh Festival as well as a number of smaller regional events.