I was brought up on a farm and from an early age I enjoyed using practical skills, playing with animals, particularly dogs.  I began fiddling with wood from the age of nine or ten, when I out grew my Lego and had no more old clocks or old radios to take apart, or try to get working. I was on the way to building bigger things.

Dad had a workshop suitable for mechanics, but with little wood or woodworking tools. Nevertheless, I utilised what there was, practicing projects found in library books, with wood from furniture bought from local sales for next to nothing. My parents occasionally gave me tools as prizes for doing well in important exams at school.  I kept the study going throughout college and found myself making furniture for a living.

I am one of the privileged few who have found their talent at an early age, and developed it. Having read a section in a management book, an employer should find the talent of their employees and encourage them to their full potential, creating a happy workforce, loving to do what they do best.

If you are a parent, and your child loves taking old things apart then rebuilding them (not your family heirlooms!), please encourage them.  Buy them more, it needn’t be expensive, just look on eBay. If you are a teacher or employer, it’s part of your job to find an individual’s talent.  It’s so easy to teach people who want to learn, it’s just a question of finding where their talent lies.

The people that are the best in their field love their work, because it is not work.  There is nothing like doing what you love doing, because it’s not a job, it’s your life.  It’s easy. Once you have found your talent, all you have to do is find a way of it making money (which isn’t always as simple).

So from my parents nurturing and encouraging their acorn, helping him grow, I now have a living making oak four poster beds and country furniture, doing what I love to do.

Stephen Edwards has been making and selling four poster beds for over 10 years, and has not had any complaints about his beds, other than people not wanting to get out of them. You must also remember that he does not make the mattress, and when someone says how well they slept in his bed, what they really mean is, how comfortable the mattress is that he supplies to go with their four poster bed.