Mike is unashamedly the dynamo behind the business, and despite making jewellery for nearly 40 years he still loves what he’s doing and is ever keen to drive things forward.
Originally trained as a Design and Technology teacher , he soon found his first love was making jewellery and after a couple of years in management he started up his own business in Leeds, and has never looked back. A wife, a move to Carradale, and a year out for him and Trish to convert a ruin into a house and workshop, and they were off!
Running a business in the Highlands requires, if nothing else, versatility. So years of experience in grabbing opportunities to learn more, changing the business direction, employing more people, employing less people, getting state-of-the art machinery, and training youngsters, has helped him build a thriving workshop full of enthusiastic workers. He’s more than happy to help and advise new starters, and always delighted to share tips with other jewellers.
He’ll take on anything - a recent job making silver fascia strips for Rolls Royce pushed us all to the limit - but he’s raring for the next challenge. Moving the kilt pins into different metals is an interesting development.
The team is of prime importance, and the workshop motto is ‘ to make wonderful jewellery , and have fun doing it’. Here he is on the ferry to one of our Hebridean islands on our annual ‘away day’ when he happily abstained while the rest of visited whisky distilleries and had a very liquid picnic on the beach.