A master craftsman of the anecdote

One of the many charms of this book is its sheer unexpectedness, which makes it hard to review, for to reveal the brilliancies too fully would spoil their effect. My copy is splattered with exclamation marks. For example, on page 65 the author is working on a piece of delicate silver jewellery that will become the ‘Two Turtle Doves’ of the title while singing along to ‘Hersham Boys’ by Sham 69, a punk band of the 1970s associated with skinhead violence. Exclamation mark. Two pages later, and years earlier, he is playing ping pong with Benjamin Britten. Two exclamation marks.

As intricately patterned as filigreed silver butterfly wings, the narrative weaves between memories of childhood (past tense) and the making of jewellery (present tense), interspersed again with tales and reflections of the near present (a bit of both). All is of a piece, however, each story providing the inspiration for each new collection of jewellery.