Author Description

G. Bernard Hughes offers the reader an opportunity to observe a number of traditional crafts not as a spectator, but as the craftsman himself sees it, process by process, and complemented by its historical background. The author combines a long and extensive practical knowledge of these crafts with the wider view of the student of social history and the collector of antiques. With such a guide, the modern successors to the great eighteenth-century fireworks master, the basket maker at his lapboard, and the spinner tramping his rope walk, take their rightful place in the pageant of history. Many crafts are being practiced in Britain using ancient techniques which have proved impossible to improve upon. Even with the construction of specialised machinery designed to do such work, their products lack the quality of older methods, or the adaptability to meet individual requirements. Today's maker of gold leaf uses the methods that would be recognised by an Egyptian of five thousand years ago; the finest paper still depends not on machines but on the vatman's ancient knowledge; whilst the highly specialised duties of each member of the glass blower's 'chair' have scarcely changed for three centuries. G. Bernard Hughes explores the world of the craftsman, and uncovers a level of skill unprecedented in today's mass production.