Newsletters

Welcome!

At this time of year, I always enjoy reflecting back on the highlights of the previous twelve months. One that immediately springs to mind was the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and our creation of a bespoke oak bench for Welcome to Yorkshire’s show garden which set out to create a sense of God’s Own County in the buzzing heart of London. Looking at the photography in this newsletter, I am sure readers will agree that this vision was realised quite magnificently by the garden’s designer Matthew Wilson. My favourite image from the event has to
be that of Dame Judi Dench sitting on the Mouseman bench – quite literally poetic.

During the summer we were delighted to welcome to our workshop the TV presenter Dave Myers who had swapped his usual guise of Hairy Biker for that of an equally hirsute Builder. Like many visitors to Kilburn he was amazed that our business still operates from the same premises established by my great grandfather. This sense of the past is indeed palpable in the workshop and inspires everything we do. The Mouseman legacy is also kept alive through our tradition of employing apprentices, each of whom learns their skills from an older craftsman. It’s a tradition that goes back to Robert Thompson’s time ensuring that his methods and techniques are passed on from one generation to the next. In this newsletter we say goodbye (or rather au revoir) to one of our longest serving craftsmen, Ray Harding, who joined the firm as an apprentice in 1967, and we introduce four young people who are at the start of their careers with Mouseman. And so continues the cycle of craftsmanship reaching back to my great grandfather and beyond to the medieval wood carvers of Ripon Cathedral that inspired him.  Ian Thompson Cartwright

winter_2016_13.pdf