I have come to jewellery relatively late. Most of my career has actually been spent in the space industry, working with satellite equipment and within the wider space sector. I started out as a young engineer and, over more than 30 years, moved through a variety of roles before eventually becoming a consultant.

Alongside all of that, though, I’ve always had a creative side and an interest in pretty much anything connected with art and design.

How things are designed has always fascinated me just as much as how they work – although the latter is perhaps more typical of an engineer. Over the years I’ve filled notebooks with ideas for all sorts of things, but jewellery was where I eventually reached the point of thinking that perhaps I should stop simply drawing them and start sharing some of them.

Why jewellery? I’ve always been fascinated by things that are small but perfectly formed – insects are amazing creatures, by the way – and jewellery fits rather neatly into that world. I love the process of taking an idea, developing the design and then creating the real thing with my own hands.

I’ve often wondered myself whether there is a connection between the two worlds of space and jewellery. Perhaps surprisingly, there is.

Gold is an ideal material for jewellery because it resists oxidation and tarnishing, while its malleability and ductility allow it to be shaped, formed and polished into elegant forms, sometimes incorporating precious stones. Those same properties, combined with its excellent electrical conductivity, also make gold extremely useful in electronics, particularly for small contacts, fine wires and protective plating.

In fact, some of the first equipment I ever worked on as an engineer contained miniature electronics with gold wires, gold contacts and even a gold-plated casing.

So perhaps the two worlds I work in today aren’t quite as far apart as they first appear.