Evidence suggests no-one ever reads these, but having unwittingly inflicted a nasty "Alf's a woman?!" moment on a fellow woodworker or two, I decided perhaps I'd better at least give everyone a chance of avoiding nasty shocks in future.

Why indeed? Simple when you know; they're my initials. The "L" will remain clouded in mystery ('cos a bit of mystery's no bad thing), but the bank manager and other official bodies know me as Alice Frampton. Practically everyone else ends up shortening it to "Alf" in print, and "AL" in the flesh. Or Auntie, if my nephews are feeling like a brisk run pursued by an irate woodworker... Variations on the Alf theme include UKAlf and oldtoolalf. You get the gist.

Pottering in my parent's garden shed when I was 9 or 10 years old, taking hand drill, hacksaw and Surform to unsuspecting bits of softwood. My mum claims she didn't know what I was up to or she would have stopped such dangerous unsupervised past times in one so young. Hmm, I can't help but wonder how did she explain to herself the tell-tale marks of the drill's gear wheels on my shirts..? Anyway, I didn't make anything ground-breaking, but was always good for a wooden sword or musket for other local pirates of school age. Roll forward a few years and I'm shed-less, so making balsa wood boxes and painting them in my bedroom. Looking back I wonder how I didn't go insane working with balsa wood, especially when a friend introduced me to veneering. Enough pressure to clamp it, not enough to crush the box. <shudder> A little further on and MDF as the ground to take the veneer was the next step. That was when I got into power tools and the rot set in. Then the discovery of solid hardwoods, the re-discovery of hand tools and a copy of Mike Dunbar's Restoring, Tuning and Using Classic Hand Tools and I was lost. The process of being turned into a neanderthal was complete when I got online and started reading the Old Tools List. I was coming out of the insane tool accumulation stage, and into one that some galoots never reach - rationalisation and selling of surplus, but it's all gone to pot again. They tell me actually making things is good fun...

Nope. Definitely not. Born up in Cheshire, lived most of my life in London, so probably nearest to being a Londoner. My dad's Cornish born, and there are plenty of Cornish cousins, but me, I'm definitely English. However the workshop is in Cornwall, so Cornish Workshop made sense. Also reasonably easy to remember.

About 10 years ago we moved down here, near Falmouth, from the Big Smoke, and I've been stuck down here ever since. Once a year I was allowed a visa to go up to Devon for the Axminster Show, but as that doesn't exist any more I'm pretty much a hermit these days. From city dweller who could walk to Charing Cross Road in 20 minutes and browse the book shops, to country mouse with a 15 minute drive to get to any commercial civilisation at all (a supermarket). No wonder I'm going slightly loopier than I was before...

Well woodworking takes up most of my spare time, but I also have a couple of parrots who do a pretty good job of taking up most of the rest. I've recently branched out in to a little fiction writing, which has rather eaten in to the woodworking a bit... I'm not a sporty type, but I'll watch practically any sport on the telly; cricket and rugby especially. Books are another great love of mine; some of my favourites are as diverse as Pride and Prejudice, the Discworld and The Magic Roundabout. All classics in their own way, as I think you'll agree... And I've never yet turned down the chance to watch a classic movie; Cary Grant, Gregory Peck, Katherine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, Myrna Loy, ah, they don't make film stars like that any more.