The cabinet was to be launched at a grand opening in central London The crew and I were still working through the last two nights before the show, to finish it…. we did not and had to improvise by exhibiting it as work-in-progress.  I was mortified, not an auspicious start.  However, Andrew, Frances, fellow exhibitors and the public were sweetness itself and what followed has not only humbled me but evolved into a thirty-year creative relationship that has flourished and delivered to this day and hopefully beyond. The Archive Cabinet took up its place in the Guildhouse and there immediately followed a request to provide shelving for a small library, then a small table and chairs, then, a low table and TV cabinet, then a kitchen…and then beds….. bathrooms…mirrors, sideboards and beyond.  We are now working on designs for a linen press, a large dining table, maybe a Stanton chair and as a thankful response from me , a cabinet to display Mary’s spinning wheel, and iconic symbol from which the Guildhouse sprang.  I have continued throughout to use elm, now increasingly rare as a timber, and without realising it the furniture has become an ‘Epitaph to the Elm’.  I aim that the work will be seen as a ‘Hymn to the Artisan’s, of our time.   For me this has been a thirty-year privilege, being lost in creative labour, an enactment of Mary’s chosen motto ‘Laborare est Orare’, ‘labour is prayer’.