Edward had been visiting the printers next door to me to get some photocopying done, as there was a short wait he was wondering about and came to my door and peered in, he made tentative moves to see more inside the workshop so I invited him in to see what I do .

He was amazed at the sculpture covering almost every surface and even hanging from the roof and commented that he had always admired people who could be creative but could never do anything like it himself, I asked if he had ever tried and he said that he had enjoyed playing with clay in his primary school but had not touched anything since. 

Like many other people his life took over , he went away to private school from a young  age, then straight on to Oxford University and then a job in the city of London. As a banker he had made a lot of money and bought a house in Rock which now he was retired he was living in full time.
Edward watched me working with clay for a few minutes so I offered him a small lump to play with, he really it so I suggested he came back another time and had a real go, he said “oh no I could never create anything worth keeping, you need years of training.”  He thanked me and left.
A few days later he came in to my workshop again, he’d been thinking about what I had said and wanted to have a go at working with some clay so we made a date.

When the day came Edward arrived wearing some newly purchased blue denim jeans and not wearing the smart tie that he had been wearing on the other occasions I’d seen him, He admitted that he had been so conditioned by his past life he found it difficult not to dress in a tie and these jeans were the first pair he had ever bought.

We began working with some clay with the idea of making a face and to start with he was restricted by his need to make everything perfect but then after a while he began to loosen up begin to control the clay rather than letting the clay control him.

Edward told me that he had been driven all his life to work hard make money and be successful but he never had any time to be himself  he never even had time to find a wife, any time he did have he would spend reading financial papers or speculating on line. After he retired he sold the house in London and moved to his beautiful house at Rock, he had a gardener , a house keeper ,  a cook and a mountain of money and he admitted he was so unhappy,  two months after moving to Cornwall he was thinking about suicide, he said his life had no point, every day he would get up put on a clean shirt and tie and then...nothing...he spent his day walking around his house, he was bored and depressed.

We talked and worked for several hours and by the end of the day Edward had created a very pleasing piece of work, he was amazed that the time had just flown by so we made a date for the following week and Edward went away clutching his clay head proudly.   I have to admit I was worried about Edward for the rest of that day hoping that his depression hadn’t crept up on him again.  I needn’t have worried, early the next morning Edward turned up at my workshop, and he came in excitedly and placed the clay head in front of me. He was as excited as a little boy with a new toy, he told me he had been working on the head for most of the night, he had been on the internet to research different faces and using the simple techniques that he had learned with me the previous day he had created what I now had before me, A beautiful character study of an old African woman.

Edward purchased some more clay and sculpture kits and went away whistling happily, a few days later he called and invited me to his home. He had created five new sculptures, all different , all really nice, one of his rooms he had converted into his own studio, he was beaming, he told me that he had found a new lease of life within creativity and he wanted to learn and experience so much more.

Edward is now 68 years old, has traveled around the world learning about new ways of creative expression, has had an exhibition of his work at a local gallery and best of all has even got married to a lovely lady he met through his sculpture.