My first experience as an instrument maker was as an apprentice to the Breton harp-maker Gildas Jaffrenou. From his workshop I went on to Newark Technical College, where I initially studied general musical instrument repair in 1975. The following year I transferred to the Violin Making School, then under the direction of its founder and director Maurice Bouette, and studied with Glen Collins and Wilfred Saunders.

After graduating from the school in 1979, I began work at J. & A. Beare in London, where I stayed for thirteen years learning the art of restoration, adjustment and instrument recognition, happily surrounded by some of the profession’s best craftspeople and experts, not to mention the greatest instruments imaginable.

Wanting to devote more time to instrument making, I left this idyllic situation in 1991 to establish my own workshop in Twickenham, where I have been ever since.

My independent career has been a mixture of new making, restoration, writing and research. My new instruments are in use by professional players both in the U.K. and abroad, and I have carried out major restorations for collectors and institutions worldwide.