My passion for wildlife, conservation and natural history has been a huge part of my life since my earliest memories. My school art books were dominated by drawings and paintings of birds and mammals. A regular after-school haunt of mine was the Natural History hall in Cliffe Castle Museum, I remember looking at the taxidermy thinking “I want to be able to do that!” the need to learn got more urgent by seeing numerous animals and birds dead at the side of the roads whilst riding my bike around the countryside. It was so wasteful to me that they simply decayed there that I started collecting and could be often seen with feathers sticking out of my coat pockets.

A trip to the library revealed a good number of taxidermy books and after some intense study I was quickly confident that this wasn’t actually very difficult. After some saving up and a lot of begging and borrowing I managed to acquire some basic kit. My first attempt at a rabbit was, I thought, a huge success, it looked super realistic and really was a first class job by anyone’s standards, however, a week later I learnt that decay took a few days to kick in and the prize rabbit began to look quite misshapen. The smell of failure got stronger and ultimately overbearing, stern words followed and my prize rabbit was duly given a respectful garden burial. The reality was that taxidermy wasn’t as easy as it had seemed.

A few months later during an after school trip to the museum I had a huge breakthrough, whilst looking through the windows to the workshops at the back of the museum I could see taxidermy and better still a man working on some birds. A week later a similar scouting outing revealed the same thing. A nervous knock on the fire door led me to meet Mr Derek Farr who was bombarded with questions and ultimately went on to teach me properly. Derek is a hugely talented taxidermist and naturalist, his knowledge of the natural world was simply immense. Although the practical skills I learnt were invaluable and got me doing ‘proper taxidermy’, my memories of that time are not so much of the taxidermy but for the emphasis and time spent observing the natural world and a specimen before working on it. This is, I believe the difference between good taxidermy and bad as no matter how talented one is at the practical side of things, lacking the knowledge of the animal or bird in its natural environment shows in the finished product with a mount that does not look alive.

Despite my initial aspirations, a museum based career in taxidermy didn’t materialise and I made a living doing other things, taxidermy became a hobby and even with breaks of time due to other commitments my enthusiasm and passion is as strong as it was 36 years ago.

Aged fifteen I tried my hand at competitions and got to witness the winning entries first hand that were, in my eyes, of a standard I could only dream about. Some 35 years later I decided again to enter some specimens into the 2021 UK Guild of Taxidermists Annual Conference. I won Best Mammal and Game Head in the Amateur category and was awarded a Bird and Mammal Credit together with winning the Mammal Challenge with a stoat. Entries to the June 2022 Guild Seminar yielded a further two bird credits. Four entries to the Guild Conference 2022 were rewarded with Best Professional Bird trophy (flying barn owl), Best in Show (cased snowy owl) and a further three bird credits together with 1st place Professional in the Avian Challenge with a pheasant.

In May 2023, three entries to the Guild Seminar gave me a further three credits for a juvenile swallow, grey hen and a chameleon giving me 10 credits from 14 entries within only 2 years of submitting work for judging. I am looking forward to competing again in the 2023 conference in early September.

Although taxidermy is now my full time job, making time for competition pieces is something I see as an important part of my professional development as they push me out of my comfort zone and without a doubt improve my work to the benefit of my clients.