In 2015 I was invited by author, journalist and tv presenter Robert Penn to make some wooden bookmarks for his book 'The man who made things out of trees'.

It was a complete surprise. I didn't know Rob then, although I had 'heard' of him from his tv series 'Tales from the Wild Wood'.

He phoned me out of the blue one day while I was working in Ladyhill Wood, as he had seen my work online. 

Rob had cut down an ash tree and wanted to see how many things could be made from it.

"After all, ash is the tree we have made the greatest and most varied use of over the course of human history". 

The answer, as it turned out, was quite a lot!

From axes and arrows, furniture and baseball bats, and, of course, bookmarks!

I picked the ash up from his home.  He was already deep into the project by then and had had several things made already which he took delight in showing my husband and I.  A paddle, bowls and spoons and a slingshot!

He was trying to eek out as much as possible from the tree he had felled, thus looking for increasingly smaller and smaller things to make, out of smaller and smaller pieces of wood.  Hence contacting me about bookmarks. 

It's a beautiful book to read, whether you are a tree enthusiast, a woodworker or just an avid reader.

I am very proud to have had a tiny part in the project.

(That's one of mine, on the top right-hand side of the cover!)