For most of my adult life I have enjoyed working with wood as a hobby. In 2009, after I was made redundant from my engineering job, I saw a chance to turn that interest into a career. This was the beginning of The Turningpoint Studio.

It started with a wood-turning lathe in the back room of the home I share with my wife in Whitley Bay. Soon, with the encouragement of family and friends, I was selling my work at craft-fairs in the local area. Heartened by the interest and enthusiasm of customers and browsers, I then took on a regular stall at York's Newgate Market one day per week, selling pieces to locals but also to tourists from all over the world. It's a real thrill to know that there are pieces of my work in places as far apart as Japan, North America,Scandinavia and Australia – not to mention Malton!

The space I now occupy became available early 2013 and I jumped at the opportunity to expand and to start designing and making furniture on a commission basis. I have since completed a number of commissions - from small turned pieces for a local furniture-restorer to large book-cases and cabinets and a genuinely unique triangular chest-of-drawers for a recess in a loft-room.

I take inspiration from the ideals of the early 20th-century Arts and Crafts Movement designers, like John Ruskin, Henry van de Velde and Ernest Gimson; also from the elegantly simple lines of the Shaker Community's utilitarian furniture. Of course, any design must reflect the customers' own vision of what they want in their homes