State of the art

DAVID Linley is holding a doorstop. It looks like a cartoon chunk of holey cheese but is made of walnut and is small, simple and beautiful - as well as amusing.

Above all, it is practical.

"Look," demonstrates Linley with a grin. "If the grain goes that way, it will slide and not do its job properly, but if you do it this way, it works perfectly - whether it's lightweight door or something for a draughty barn, it will work on them all."

This is a man who knows about wood, its problems, its properties, its beauties and what can be done with it. It is a knowledge that comes from a lifetime of experience and years of training.

Now he wants other people to have the same chance as he had to acquire that knowledge and skill. And for the rest of us to appreciate it. Craft training in this country he says, is in crisis and we need to do something about it.

The doorstops at £19 are among the cheapest items sold by Linley. His catalogue includes tables for £15,000, mirrors at £2,900 and desks for £18,000. And for the bespoke items you can just keep adding the noughts.

But they are beautiful, exquisitely made - many of them in a workshop in Whitby - to a standard of design and workmanship that we think of as belonging to a bygone age. And if we're not careful, that could well be true.

"Where will the next generation of master craftsmen come from?" asks Linley. "We are not training crafts people as we used to do. We're not giving people the chance to learn. Education has become very academic. There's nothing wrong with academic for some people, but not all. There's another way of doing things and people aren't getting the same chances any more.

"Instead, we put the emphasis on design. Yes, fine. Design is important. I spend much of my working life as a designer. But how can you design for materials if you don't know what they can do? The feel of them, the possibilities, the capabilities? These are things you learn only by working with materials all the time. Frankly, a university degree is not much help in that."

David Linley is, of course, Viscount Linley, son of Princess Margaret, nephew of the Queen, though he has always tried to make his own way on his own name.

"When I started out, I shared a flat above a chip shop in Dorking. The smell of fat got everywhere," he says cheerfully.,

And now, in a street of exceedingly grand furniture shops, where prospective customers have to ring the bell before they are allowed over the threshold, his shop is open and welcoming with friendly staff who encourage you to have a good mooch round.

Linley himself is easy, relaxed, tells stories against himself and rubs his head where he has been bashed awake by his young children. He chats knowledgeably about North Yorkshire - his in-laws live at Thornton Steward - and knows about all the furniture makers who work in and around Thirsk.

He's made things from his earliest days "helping" his father Lord Snowdon. "It was great fun to be in the workshop with him. I used the welding torch and the band saw. And when I was allowed to use the circular saw, the elation was nearly the same driving a fast car for the first time."

"Children love making things, but they don't get the same opportunities now as practical subjects seem to be sidelined. I would love to see schools offering much more in the way of practical subjects to let children see what they can do."

His parents asked him if he wanted to go to university but when he said he wanted to study furniture making, that was fine. He went straight to the John Makepeace School "very practical and where they also tried to make you think for yourself. Instead of running for help all the time, you were encouraged to find solutions yourself. Much more effective.

"There wasn't any kind of push from my parents. It wasn't automatic to go to university in those days. They were happy that were other ways of learning."

Which is what he wants to go back to, and so he is waging his own campaign, "talking to people, lobbying, using any influence I have," to get craft training improved and, above all, recognised and respected, and not just as a Cinderella alternative to university.

A recent report by the Countryside Agency said that country crafts will soon be more profitable to the rural economy than farming. There is a big demand for blacksmiths, thatchers, hurdlemakers, stonemasons. The heritage building sector alone is worth £2bn a year.

"But where are these people going to learn their skills? How will they be trained? Who will teach them? The demand is there, the careers are there for them, but the training isn't.

"Also we expect people to be able to do a bit of everything, when sometimes what we need is for more people to do one thing really well. I go to a workshop and sometimes see a carver or a wood turner and that might be the only thing they do, but they do it brilliantly, perfectly. That's specialisation. That's how you get the highest standards."

When he started out, David Linley was designer, craftsman, salesman and delivery van driver. "Too much. When I was falling sleep at the wheel delivering a piece, I knew things had to change."

Now he no longer makes things himself - except for fun - and calls himself an "enabler". He employs 40 staff in the shop and head office in London. He deals with commissions and talks ideas through with clients.

"From that point until a piece is delivered can be six months. Something else people don't often realise is how long it actually takes to make things by hand. You're paying for people's time as well as their talent."

He designs, writes books, is a businessman, whizzes round the various workshops. And, of course, is doing his bit to promote skilled craftsmen.

"In this country we have craftsmen producing work that's as good as any at any time in history. But they need our support., We have to ensure that the next generation has its chance."

Much Linley furniture is made in a workshop on the Stainsacre Industrial Estate in Whitby. And if you want to know why a desk can cost £15,000 or more this might help explain it.

"It's a workshop of craftsmen," says Linley. "And their enthusiasm is great, wonderful. They take such pride in their work and they are meticulous about the tiniest detail. And the best thing about them is that so many of them are in their twenties and thirties, not wizened old men but young and enthusiastic."

The workshop is owned by run by Mark Asplin Whiteley, who worked with David Linley and then decided to return home to Whitby to open his workshop there. At first, many of the cabinet makers came with him from the south, but now most are recruited locally.

The furniture they make is exquisite, works of art. It's hard to imagine eating fish and chips at these tables, or using the desk to do anything so mundane as paying a gas bill

"Each craftsman will go to the mill to choose the wood he wants to work with. He'll do his own machining so he really know the wood he's working with," says Linley.

"Then we have the meticulous carving, turning, marquetry, French polishing and gilding, working with the small pieces of veneer. It is highly skilled and these are skills that are mastered only after thorough training plus plenty of experience."

Mark Whitely and Mark Robinson, his manager, both studied at Rycotewood College in Oxfordshire. Mark Robinson, who's been with the company for 12 years, left school at 17, did a three-year apprenticeship in City and Guilds carpentry and then spent two years at Rycotewood training as a cabinet maker.

"Most of the people here came from a practical background," he says. "But now many of the colleges are being encouraged to offer degree courses, or to concentrate on design, so it's hard to get that practical grounding. York College offers a day release scheme which has proved useful, but there are fewer of those courses around.

"And at an earlier stage, in schools, children don't seem to have much chance to try practical skills so they never get the chance to find out what they might be good at."

At present the workshop is working flat out, including on a number of pieces for Linley. But, like David Linley, Mark Robinson is pessimistic.

"Unless we get the training right, we're in danger of wasting all the talent we have. If we're not careful, in 20 or 30 years time all our furniture will be made in Poland and China. Is that really what we want?"