Early years

Napkin ring with lettering carved with a penknife by my father

I was introduced to lettering as a child by my grandmother; equipped with cobbler's wax heel ball and rolls of paper we would walk around graveyards in search of inscriptions. I would make rubbings and she would have time to sit and draw. One day my father bought me an octagonal wooden napkin ring, and carved one letter of my name on each side with a penknife. I handled this object every day, aware of the way the letter had been cut into the wood.

My early love of lettering led me to study Typography and Graphic Communication at the University of Reading. Here I was given my first formal lesson in lettercarving by Ralph Beyer, and was taught lettering by Michael Harvey, a visiting lecturer at the time. We visited Italy to study Roman and Renaissance letterforms, and Germany and the Netherlands to study early type design. My thesis on English gravestones resulted in a large photographic collection of English memorials cut between 1700-1850. This has become a valuable resource and historical record of English vernacular lettering.

While still a student I was given my first lettercarving job - designing and carving a memorial inscription for Cecil Brown, which I cut in situ into the wall at St Laurence Jewry-next-Guildhall. This fine city church designed by Christopher Wren had been restored by Cecil Brown after the war; the stained glass had been replaced in its entirety by my grandfather Christopher Webb, and the silver made by my father.

After leaving Reading in 1984 John Skelton offered me a place in his workshop, but I had already started taking commissions and decided to work on my own. This enabled me to work with a lettercaver in the USA in 1989 and 1991, carving inscriptions in Boston and New York.