I was born in 1942 in Edgeworth, a hamlet on the Lancashire moors, where my family had moved during the war. Since then I have held a romantic view of small farms, based on the warmth of  my family’s relationship with that community, which continued as I grew up in Manchester.  On the strength of this feeling, I even tried my hand at farming in Cornwall for a couple of years.  The economics of farming quickly drove me to supplement my income with toy-making.

My original training was as a painter at Camberwell School of Art. I then taught for ten years, mainly in the East End of London.  This brought me into contact with Bangladeshi children straight from rural backgrounds, whose families had arrived in England fleeing the civil war. They brought with them a decorative sense which involved simplicity of design, strength of colour and fluidity of brush strokes.  I took them to the nearby Bethnal Green Museum, where I discovered these same elements in European wooden folk toys—especially the Noah’s Arks.

I made my first Noah’s Ark when my daughter was small, and the one-off became a life’s work. To read more click here…

David Plagerson Handcrafted Noah’s Arks