I have been a basketmaker in various guises since I was shown how to make my very first basket, using hedgerow willow and blackberry stems, by my neighbour, Tom Aldridge. Tom was from a travelling family and had made baskets from hedgerow materials when he travelled around Cornwall with a donkey cart, finally settling on Rosudgeon Common in a caravan with his wife. The whole process of cleaving the willow and splitting the blackberry stems was difficult to master as a beginner but I knew that I had found my vocation.