St Ives-a new millennium - Flipbook - Page 31
St Ives-a new millennium
4/10/02
3:44 pm
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Above: Don Walker, modelmaker
Photo: Stuart Littlewood/Pentax MX
Above: David Peace, glass engraver
Photo: James Bunn/Canon EOS650 (from a colour slide)
David, who lives in Hemingford Abbots, qualified as an architect and began glass engraving in 1935,
developing the themes of lettering and heraldry that have characterised his work.
He has produced exquisite decorative and presentation glass and large-scale architectural engravings
notably in windows, screens and doors in colleges, churches and cathedrals, including Westminster Abbey
and his local church. He likes using a Victorian-style foot-treadle dentist’s drill for what he calls his
‘scratching’. Examples of his work are to be found in public collections in the UK and the United States.
Don started work in a commercial art studio and, when called
up, joined the RAF’s Topographical Model Section. Back in civvy
street he specialised in modelmaking of all kinds - aircraft,
ships, town centre schemes and film sets - including the famous
‘Thunderbirds’ TV puppet series.
He has had a lifelong fascination for boating and for 15 years
lived on a seagoing boat moored on the Thames. Now retired he
restores stationary diesel engines. His latest project is more
ambitious - a 32ft stern-wheeler paddle boat powered by a
Lister diesel, which he hopes to have ready by the end of 2002.
Don is pictured here aboard the half-finished craft.
David became the first chairman of the Guild of Glass Engravers in 1975. He was awarded an MBE in 1977
for his work in environmental conservation.
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