Despite being just 19 years old, Lincolnshire’s Sam Fox is quite literally carving out a brilliant career as a renowned craftsman making high quality carved walking sticks. This month, we meet a promising example of the next generation of countrymen keeping alive the traditional skills of the countryside.

Most 19 year olds aspire to be successful DJs rather than keeping alive more traditional countryside crafts, and most want to work as website designers rather than in countryside management, so in that respect, Lincolnshire’s Sam Fox is rather unique.

Sam has spent most of his life in Lincolnshire and has been raised to respect the countryside and the county’s precious woodland, and has been somewhat enterprising in his efforts to incorporate a  sense of environmental responsibility in his two businesses.

By day, Sam runs his mobile saw milling business, Timber Miller, working throughout Lincolnshire to mill excess timber for customers in order to provide a range of timber products for the winter. It’s a superb way of ensuring customers don’t need to have their felled or fallen timber transported away, milled, then transported back at cost to the customer and to the detriment of their carbon footprint.

At the weekend, though, Sam’s love of all things timber sees him coppicing and crafting hazel from local woodland to create hand made walking sticks that are both intricate in design and beautiful in construction.

It’s a time consuming activity and one that requires a great deal of skill and patience, attributes not normally found in teenagers, but ones which Sam possesses in abundance.

 “It all began with a family holiday to Canada.” Explains Sam. “We went to see some totem carving and I was fascinated.” Each of the designs Sam saw told stories, or honoured deceased elders or the names they had made for themselves throughout their lives.

The poles coincided with an art A-Level which Sam was studying towards and having always nurtured artistic inclinations, Sam was suddenly struck by how rewarding it was to work in a 3D medium.

His first project was carving a paddle – a relatively simple shape which allowed him to begin learning how to work with the material.