Q1: @MakersHour
Hello, let's talk about our own favourite projects.
Share a brief description of your favourite, and what it means to you.

A1: Hello, I am Alfred, maker, carer, caretaker, and miniaturist story teller.
My favourite project has been #HarrietAndDaisy. @HarrietMaker has a woodwork workshop, miniature railway, and Monty Dog, and her girlfriend, Daisy, has a terrace house and works in recycling. I have built their 1:12 scale world in miniature, written their story, and illustrated with photo dioramas of them in the dolls houses I built for them.

Tonight’s soundtrack is: (In memory of an old friend) Wes McGhee (1948 - 2026) – Neon and Dust.
#MakersHour

Though I have lost my making mojo, the thing I would like to drag it (kicking and screaming) back is to make a 1:12 scale Beryl for #HarrietAndDaisy.

Beryl was Sue's 'company car' the little electric truck she often drove to do the recycling collection in York before we got married.
I was very taken by Beryl, and it was often joked that I visited to see Beryl more than Sue.

Anyway, when we married, Sue's employer gave Beryl to me when she was being scraped.
I have Beryl's cab and will rebuild her one day.
But for now I want to scratch build the 1:12 scale version, probably also in brass.

#GoodMorningWorlds
We are taking Mum shopping this morning.

Afterwards I should really get on with something productive. That might mean rewriting #HarrietAndDaisy, or some more work on the house.

Q4: @MakersHour
Is the creativity and imagination of the past, or your childhood, still influencing what you make now?

A4: Yes, kinda. I used to make, from wood, a lot of the toy cars and trucks I played with when I was little. Now I still make from wood, but also metal, and I have still been making vehicles occasionally but in drivable sizes. I have another in the pipeline, but no time to focus on it. Given the space I’d make more vehicles, and trailers, if regulations were not so restrictive even though I agree with the safety aspect of it.

There is also the fantasy aspect.
I used to make up a lot of the story play with the toys I had, and in may ways, writing the #HarrietAndDaisy stories is still a large part of that.

#MakersHour

Q2: @MakersHour
I'm currently working on a make with an "autobiographical" dimension. Do your makes reflect aspects of you such as your life, beliefs or personality?

A2: Oh, often, very much so. Especially through my miniatures work and writing about #HarrietAndDaisy. Much of their life experiences are based loosely on those I have had or had shared from others. They have views, beliefs, and interests that align with mine. That made it very easy to create and write about.

#MakersHour

Q3: @MakersHour
Is there a thing you have made that has just made you really happy, just for having made it? Tell us about your happiest make.

A3: I can name two things I have created that has made me really happy, aside form our wedding rings. Writing about #HarrietAndDaisy, and making Harriet’s dog, Monty Dog. So much joy in my life from them and I miss them at the moment.

#MakersHour

Q3: @MakersHour
#MakersHour started about 8 years ago, what's changed in your making since then?

A3: I don’t make as much, and rarely take any paying work for clients. I used to make installations, from built in home furniture to museum cabinets, to entire museum installations. Since Covid I switched to volunteering, with the Community Workshop, and with Repair Cafes doing an increasing amount of furniture restoration.
Also, I had started working in miniatures creating @HarrietMaker and writing a massively long back story about #HarrietAndDaisy and their lives in the fictional Market Town of Theraton.

#MakersHour