I think I was five when I was first allowed into my Grandfather’s workshop, and the first thing I remember was the pungent smell of the glue pot, combined with the aromatic perfume of felt and balsa wood, as he carefully reconstructed the piano hammers.
These were not just any Piano’s, these were John Broadwood & Sons Piano’s, the oldest English Piano maker dating back to 1718, with Royal Warrants dating back to King George II.
Jim, as he was known, would travel up to London to tune the Queen’s piano’s, and I would ask why he had to keep going back, as surely once was enough?
He would say, “Life is a bit like a piano string, it can stretch or shrink out of shape, so it has to be tended to on a regular basis, to keep the piano in tune.”
The same love, skill, and craft are brought forward into what we do today, the apple does not fall far from the tree.