My name is Richard Edwards, and I am a teacher and watchmaker. I graduated from York University in Biology in 1969 then trained as a teacher. Unfortunately while I was at university I got the watch bug; in fact I spent more time buying and repairing watches than I did dissecting frogs!

While in my first teaching post in London I enrolled for a three year BHI evening course at Hackney College and by 1977 I had passed all stages with honours. I immediately abandoned a secure badly paid job as a teacher in favour of an insecure badly paid job as a restorer of antique watches. I spent the next ten years working for a small group of London dealers restoring watches they had bought at Sothebys including 17th c. form watches, musical and minute repeaters.

When I moved to Hertfordshire I took retraining as a technology teacher where I remained until I retired in 2009 but I never stopped repairing watches which I now do full time again.