Sometimes you don't choose your calling. It chooses you!

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In this episode I speak to two talented musicians who both share their deep respect for Scotland’s oldest national instrument. No, not the bagpipes but the harp! Harp playing has its roots stretching back to Pictish stone carvings over a thousand years ago, and yet most people don’t even know it exists. Bill Taylor calls it “cultural amnesia,” and together with master harp maker Graham Muir, they are quietly working to change that from their base in the Scottish Highlands. Bill’s story is one of those moments where life just pulls you in a direction you never expected. A single concert in upstate New York in the early 80s, where a very young Sylvia Woods was playing, turned a librarian into a musician, and eventually drew him all the way across the Atlantic for good. Sometimes you don’t choose your calling, it chooses you! Graham’s path to harp making is equally fascinating, running through electric violins, offshore engineering, and furniture making before landing (almost by accident) at the workbench where he now crafts instruments from solid blocks of Scottish sycamore, some based on designs over a thousand years old. And here is something that really surprised me: there is no such thing as the Scottish harp. There are dozens of them, wire-strung, gut-strung, bray, medieval, modern. Each with its own unique sound, technique, and personality. The right one, they both agree, will find you. Oh, and if you have ever walked through Stirling Castle and heard that strange, beautiful, hypnotic music drifting through the gallery? That is Bill. Playing a reconstruction of music carved into a 16th century stone portrait head. I had no idea, and I was completely blown away when he told me! Tune in for a fascinating conversation about craft, history, and the music that has been woven into the soul of Scotland for centuries. To get in touch with either Bill or Graham, check out these websites: https://www.billtaylor.eu/index.asp https://www.ardival.com Thank you for listening to the podcast. I would love to know what you’re taking away from this episode. If you are a crafter in Scotland and would like to be a guest on this podcast, then please complete this short form - https://form.typeform.com/to/kUUWIPfR [https://form.typeform.com/to/kUUWIPfR] To stay in touch and find out about upcoming guests then visit me over on Instagram and follow along - https://www.instagram.com/devinetoursofscotland/ [https://www.instagram.com/devinetoursofscotland/] In case this inspires you not only to be more creative but also plan a holiday in Scotland and would like a little help with planning your trip or even like me to guide you in part or for the entire duration of your stay, then check out my website and use the contact form to get in touch - https://devinetoursofscotland.co.uk This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit devinetoursofscotland.substack.com [https://devinetoursofscotland.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

A woodcarvers tale - literally MADE IN SCOTLAND

There’s a moment, somewhere between the steady rhythm of a carving knife and the quiet grain of a piece of wood, where a life begins to make sense. For John, that moment didn’t arrive all at once. It was shaped slowly over decades through sawdust-filled workshops, long apprenticeships, and the kind of learning that happens not from books, but from watching, doing, and trying again. He began, as many makers once did, in a school workshop. A good teacher, a spark of interest, and then ….. an apprenticeship. No grand plan. Just a trade to learn, a path to follow. Back then, furniture making was not the romantic craft we might imagine today. It was structured, efficient, often repetitive. Chairs produced in numbers. Processes refined for speed. And yet, within that world, something deeper was forming. An understanding of wood.Of patience.Of how skill lives in the hands. John became good, really good. Good enough to lead a team. Good enough to recreate intricate, historical pieces with precision. But carving, the thing he would later become known for, came almost by accident. A piece of outsourced carving returned to the workshop poorly done. His mentor looked at him and said, “You could do better.” So he picked up the chisels. No formal training. No rulebook. Just curiosity, persistence, and the quiet confidence that comes from years of working with your hands. There’s something striking in the way John speaks about learning. Not as something fixed or finished, but as a lifelong process. Even now, he remains open to new techniques, new ideas, even suggestions from beginners. Because craft, as John sees it, is never truly mastered. Only deepened. But the world around him was changing. The materials he once worked with (tropical hardwoods like mahogany) came from a time when questions of sustainability were rarely asked. Furniture, once built to last generations, was increasingly replaced by mass-produced, disposable pieces. Apprenticeships began to disappear. Workshops fell silent. And yet, in Scotland, particularly in the quiet corners of estates and rural communities, the echoes of an older way of working still remain. Old joiners’ workshops. Blacksmiths’ forges. Spaces that once held entire ecosystems of craft. Spaces that, perhaps, could again. At sixty, John made a decision that many only dream of. He stepped away. Away from the pressure.Away from the expectations.Away from the life he had built. And he began again, this time in Scotland. When visiting a friend on the Isle of Skye, at a simple kitchen table, “Carving in Scotland” was born. Not as a business plan, but as a way of living. Today, his workshop is small. Intentionally so. A wooden shed. A second-hand lathe. A handful of tools. No large machines. No production lines. Just wood, and time, and the quiet space to think. He sources his materials locally often within a few miles. Oak, ash, sycamore, cherry. Sometimes even from the reject pile. Each piece carries its own story, its own shape waiting to emerge. Because John doesn’t begin with a fixed design. He begins with the wood. “They happen while I’m doing it,” he says of his work. Spoons, spurtles, long-handled shoehorns. No two are ever quite the same. Each one a small conversation between maker and material. Nothing is wasted. Offcuts become smaller pieces such as spice spoons, wooden hearts. Even the scraps find purpose. It’s not sustainability as a label. It’s simply… how he works. In a world of souvenirs stamped “Designed in Scotland” but made far away, John’s work stands in quiet contrast. It is undeniably of place. Of hand. Of time. And perhaps that’s why it resonates. Because what he offers is not just an object, but a connection to the material, to the process, to the place it came from. There’s an eagle carved into his work. A maker’s mark. He first saw them on Skye. Golden eagles, wide-winged and effortless against the sky. For him, they came to represent something deeply personal. Freedom. Freedom from difficult clients.From financial pressure.From making what others expected of him. “Now I make what I want to make,” he says. “And it makes me happy.” And that, perhaps, is the quiet heart of his story. Not success in the conventional sense. Not scale or growth or recognition. But contentment. Time seemed to stand still when John and I talked. Before we knew it, an hour had passed and to be honest, we could have easily continued. Do listen to the full story and find out in the end how the story comes full circle. John sells his hand carved wooden spoons, spurtles and other trinkets in The Scottish Textiles Showcase shop located at 20 St Mary’s Street in Edinburgh. Get in touch with John: You can check out the Scottish Textiles Showcase website with John’s articles here [https://scottishtextilesshowcase.com/collections/home] . John also has his own instagram handle for Carving in Scotland [https://www.instagram.com/carvinginscotland/] Thank you for listening to the podcast. I would love to know what you’re taking away from this episode. If you are a crafter in Scotland and would like to be a guest on this podcast, then please complete this short form - https://form.typeform.com/to/kUUWIPfR [https://form.typeform.com/to/kUUWIPfR] To stay in touch and find out about upcoming guests then visit me over on Instagram and follow along - https://www.instagram.com/devinetoursofscotland/ [https://www.instagram.com/devinetoursofscotland/] In case this inspires you not only to be more creative but also plan a holiday in Scotland and would like a little help with planning your trip or even like me to guide you in part or for the entire duration of your stay, then check out my website and use the contact form to get in touch - https://devinetoursofscotland.co.uk This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit devinetoursofscotland.substack.com [https://devinetoursofscotland.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

23. mar. 20261 h 1 min

Sometimes you don't choose your calling. It chooses you!

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