I currently work full-time as Senior Design Engineer for a specialist vehicle manufacturing company. This occupation consists of brief periods of extremely interesting projects, interspersed with long days of complete boredom stuck in front of a computer.
To ease the boring periods, I started making a few things for around our house such as candelabra and wineracks. Friends and neighbours asked if I would make similar items for them, which led on to larger projects such as handrails and linkboxes, and so I decided to make things 'proper' and above-board - hence the start of Ashreigney Iron. This has now expanded into other areas, particularly around the farms, and I now do less (around 50%) ornamental work simply as a result of demand in the agricultural sector. In addition to the welding and fabricating, I also help out with lambing and tractor work at the relevant times of year. I particularly enjoy the ornamental work as it allows an amount of artistic expression, which is difficult to obtain when making a trailer!
I became a Parish Councillor a few years ago, and am currently chair of the Parish Plan Steering Group. More about our Parish Plan can be seen on the Ashreigney Parish website. I consider this to be a very important exercise, and as such have been working with the steering group for some time to ensure that a genuine balanced view is obtained. The Ashreigney Parish website came to life as a result of the Parish Plan steering group meetings, and is developing into a very useful resource.
I joined Ashreigney Country Fundraisers in 2002, became Secretary in 2004 and Chairman from the beginning of 2008. The general idea behind this organisation is to raise money for local charities, by doing things we enjoy. All of the committee members have an interest in vintage machinery and vehicles, and we all like Country music, hence the events run are based around these interests. Over the years this has been a very successful formula, with many thousands of pounds being raised and distributed. More details can be found on the Ashreigney Country Fundraisers website.
My interest in older machinery has led me to aquire quite a reasonable collection over the years, mostly motorcycles but also agricultural and horticultural equipment.
In my youth, I was a keen motocross competitor and have kept some of the 'bikes I raced partly through nostalgia and partly because, at the time, they were not worth very much money (that's my excuse anyway). I was fortunate enough to be able to compete in the British Fourstroke Championship and the Haynes Publishing National Fourstroke Championship, and to also race in the support classes at several Grand Prix.
The current collection consists of:
1943 Harley Davidson WLA, 1948 Allis Chalmers model B tractor, 1952 Velocette MAC, 1959 Fordson Dexta tractor, 1978 545cc CCM GP, 1980 500cc JBR, 1986 Landrover 90 V8 CSW, 1991 560cc PBH, Ransome Royal No2 mower, Huxtables Expanding hay rake, Micro-Culto garden tractor with implements. I hope to add a few photographs shortly, but as you will have seen from my Gallery pages, I'm not very good with a camera.
I enjoy most types of shooting and am a member of the BASC, I also grow vegetables on a 1/4 acre plot which keeps us fairly self sufficient for most of the year. The tractors come in handy on the veg plot at certain times of year, and they are worked for charity in September.
I started playing skittles for the village team a few months back. We seem to be getting beaten a lot lately - hopefully that's not all my fault! It's good fun and very sociable.