Basketmaking is the oldest of mankind’s crafts, predating pottery but-unlike pottery-occurring universally from the very dawn of history. It represented, before even the first flint knife or the crude bone axehead, the ultimate pinnacle of hand-crafted expertise in the form of a“machine for carrying things in.”

I was lucky enough to meet Mr Ronnie Woods, (1919 – 1994) in 1976 and become his apprentice in the late seventies. Ronnie was the town basketmaker in Dereham, Norfolk for many years.

His family had been in the trade for several generations and had their thriving business in Norwich at 16 Ber Street, until the building was bombed in 1941 and the family moved to Rash’s Green in Dereham.

Ronnie worked in a variety of different workshops over the years, finally retiring in 1989 aged 78. He was a much-loved and well-known local character.

In 1989 I acquired an apprentice, Rob King, who in time taught his wife Julie, and both are now accomplished basketmakers. The three of us, although trading independently, share stands at some of the county’s larger summer shows.

Where once basketmaking was purely a utilitarian craft producing a practical, workaday essential, today it has developed into a prized part of our artistic heritage that rightly deserves to be appreciated and encouraged in a modern world.