Joan and I, have lived here in rural County Durham for over 60 years and overlooking woodland for 40 of these. We share a passion for wildlife and craft based activities and strive to keep healthy and active as we grow older. 

I became increasingly interested in wood-turning as I approached retirement and began looking for a challenging activity to stretch my imagination. I had inherited a lathe, bandsaw and associated hand tools from my father and secured a number of books to research this new subject area.

I joined two turning clubs and attended as many demonstrations as I could to try to establish best practice. Shortly after joining one club they were able to secure grant funding to secure training with a local professional turner, Jimmy Clewes, now located in America.

I enjoyed a couple of days training with "Jimmy" and was able to progress with renewed confidence as a result of this significant introduction. Having been involved in engineering training for most of my life, I have a particular interest in what I refer to as "technical" turning.

Thread chasing and creating geometrical shapes became a passion and I was able to move on to the occasional demonstration of these topic areas. Now, some years on from it's creation and in the middle of this terrible pandemic, I am making an effort to update the site to include more recent and relevant content.  NAJ 31-10-2020.