Pink Floyd and Pens...

In the summer of 2019, I was very fortunate to be invited to an open weekend at Middlewick House in Corsham the home of Nick Mason, drummer with Pink Floyd. Nick opens his gardens every year to raise money for two charities, the Wiltshire Bobby Van Trust and Wiltshire Air Ambulance so I was delighted to have a stall there and support these two great causes.

Early on the Saturday morning of the event I heard Nick being interviewed on BBC Wiltshire where the interviewer asked him if he was a gardener himself. Nick replied that it was a standing joke that he was a 'zero hours gardener', something I could relate to!

So after setting up my stall and shorly before the event opened, Nick came wandering around and my stall caught his eye. He came over to me, I introduced myself to him and said it was a great pleasure to meet another zero hours gardener!  We had a lovely chat and he decided to purchase a pen from me, a beautiful synthetic ivory and amboyna burr fountain pen, one of my favourite combinations of materials. As he wanted a fine nib fitted to it, (a service I am happy to provide) I held on to the pen.

I had a wonderful weekend, met some lovely people and sold lots of pens and cufflinks. Nick had some of his car collection out which was pretty amazing.

After the event a few emails passed between me and Nick and he invited me back to the following years event.  I said I would love to make a pen for his charity auction, Nick himself had donated such items as a guitar. I suggested to make it extra special, perhaps I could make one from one of his drumsticks?

A few days later I received a parcel with not one, but a pair of his custom branded drumsticks, not only that but he had signed them as well. I was utterly delighted and set to work planning how I was going to do this.

One of the main problems was that the drumstick was only 14.5mm diameter and the first job is to drill a hole a hole down the middle. For my SF2 fountain pen mechanism, the hole had to be 12.5mm diameter, leaving only 1mm on each side! Trying to drill this would end in disaster, the wood would split out and I would have a ruined drumstick.

I won't go into the technicalities but I found a solution (which I practiced on a non-Nick Mason drumstick!) and it all worked beautifully. I decided to keep the section that had his name and signature on it and display that in the presentation box with the pen.

Unfortunately his 2020 event had to be cancelled due to coronavirus, but he has seen the pen and is delighted with it. We decided to hang on to it until his 2021 event which he is determined will be bigger and better than before. There is a small amout of wood left which I will be making into some very special sterling silver cufflinks, watch this space...

If you have a wooden object that you would like turned into a pen, cufflinks or other jewellery please get in touch sales@simon-webb.co.uk