I had played classical guitar rather badly since university days, and something prompted me to take a week long introduction to musical instrument making with luthier Normal Reed of the Totnes School of Guitar Making. I wanted to play a guitar that I had made myself. One week was just about enough time to learn some of the ethos of musical instrument making (extreme care and accuracy in shaping wood) but not enough to do more than begin to shape a few of the component parts. However, I had the bug and sometime in the mid-1980s signed on for an evening class in Bristol with Arthur Robb, who is still active as a well known luthier at the time of writing. (That was a time when quite generously subsidized evening classes gave people the chance to try many crafts and while being taught by experienced professionals.)
Having completed the guitar, and still enjoying the challenge of extreme woodwork I chose to attempt a lute. (The delicate shell and intricate carving of the sound rose make lute construction different from building a guitar.) Unfortunately, closure of the classes (subsidies withdrawn by strapped-for-cash local authorities) and changes in personal circumstances (acquisition of wife, house-move out of Bristol and eventually children) meant that the lute bits were left in the box in which they had moved house for most of the next decade. This lasted until children left toddler-hood and a could draw breath. Finally, completed more than a decade after starting.
Later, my children decided they would take up the violin - and were clear that they did not want to play guitar in any form - so I took lessons from a local violin maker (who happened to be the father of a lad in my younger daughter's primary class). Each of my daughters now plays one of my violins and I am working (slowly) on a viola, with a longer term plan to build a 'cello for my wife during my retirement from work. Things are currently stalled while I do other things - but I still mean to get back to instrument making real soon now.
