Last week, two intermediate course students started on their one-month stay with us.

One, Kelvin Palmer from East Lothian, is a retired hospital consultant.

He comes to us with little woodworking experience.

His interest in furniture making was sparked by coming to our end-of-term exhibition.

The idea of woodworking as a serious hobby in retirement was born.

He’s not the first medic to come on our intermediate course.

In February, former public health doctor Anne Maree Wallace from Edinburgh completed her one-month intermediate course.

She joined the course having also been on our one-week introductory course, which she thoroughly enjoyed.

Last year, we also had paediatric doctor Mara Dreger from Sao Paulo in Brazil.

Our intermediate course is primarily aimed at woodworking hobbyists who are keen to move their skills to the next level.

The course is taught by Alan McGovern, a skilled cabinet maker with over 33 years of experience.

To maximise one-to-one tuition, we only ever have two students on the course at any one time.

The course is built around our students’ other commitments, so there are no set start and finish dates.

Also, if a student can’t commit to a month, we can flexibly arrange for the course to be completed in bite-sized chunks.

Kelvin’s project for the course is to make a semi-circular elm table. After leaving us, he intends to set up his own workshop.