I have been writing…

The Greek is from Homer, ‘Some God led us here’, carved by Desmond Chute.

THE GUILD: I have now completed the first draft of my next book. It looks at the community of crafts people who gathered at Ditchling in Sussex and who I grew up amongst. I have really enjoying doing all the research, even though I had to put all other activities on hold in order to have the space to write. The community included weavers and dyers, stone carvers, printers, a goldsmith, carpenters, engravers and painters and I was the most junior member. I am trying to do my forebears justice by following through on their ideas and seeing them as part of a long lineage of makers who have reflected on what it means to work with their hands. Its been a challenge!

David Jones was a member of the community for a while. My cover design for the Folio Society edition of his ‘In Parenthesis’.

My grandfather, Valentine KilBride, at his loom

The constitution of the Guild, written out by Joseph Cribb, 1930s.