Having been brought up on a farm I have always enjoyed playing with animals, particularly dogs, and building things with Lego and Meccano. I was forever taking things apart and making things, and at the age of nine or ten, I started taking an interest in wood. I was on the way to building bigger things.

Dad had an oily farm workshop, set up for mechanics and metalwork, but it did have some wood, and a few woodworking tools. I managed to dig out what I could find, and start to practice joints that I had seen in books. Mum took me into town where I would get lost in the library hunting out woodworking books. Finally when I moved into senior school at the age of eleven, I started woodwork. I picked things up quickly, and it seems I was in my element. My parents bought old bed headboards made in solid mahogany, oak and walnut, for me to cut up and ‘play’ with. Dad got an old lathe going and bought a few tools from time to time. My free time was spent in Dad’s workshop, now up to your knees in shavings. Tools and machines were occasionally used as ‘carrots’ during important exams within my education. At the end of it, I had qualifications, and a couple of useful machines. We were very lucky on the farm as Dad was able to let me have the use of a cold, but dry shed to set up a workshop. What more could you ask for, I could build stuff, bigger stuff. I continued to learn about wood, its properties and what to do with it through school, college until I found myself making furniture for a living.

I was once called ‘sad’ for not having any interests or hobbies, for not watching or being able to discuss the ‘big match’ with my mates. My idea of a few days off, was getting in the workshop and making something for me. When you analyse things, I am one of the fortunate few who managed to find their talent at an early age, develop it, and turn it into a living. Having recently read a section in a management book, part of an employer’s job is to find the talents of their employees and encourage them to their full potential, creating a happy work force, that loves doing what they do best.

So if you are a parent, with a kid who loves to fiddle with things, take things apart, then rebuild them, please encourage them, buy them more, it needn’t be expensive, just look on ebay. If you’re a teacher or employer, it’s part of your job to find an individual’s talent, because it’s so easy to teach people who want to learn, it’s just a question of finding out where their talents lies. There is nothing like doing something you love doing, because it’s not a job, it’s your life, it’s easy. And once you have found your talent, all you have to do is find a way of making money at it (which isn’t always as easy). The people that are the best in their field love their work, because it’s not work.

Stephen Edwards has been making furniture for over 25 years, and has settled into making four poster beds and oak country furniture. He does this from the English/Welsh border county of Herefordshire, in an area as rural as it gets. For more information and other articles, please visit www.fourposterbed.co.uk or www.newhouseoak.co.uk