Keeping his world turning: How Alan Palmer taught himself to make beautiful things out of wood

November 13, 2025

Keeping his world turning: How Alan Palmer taught himself to make beautiful things out of wood

By Ros Dodd

Walking into what used to be a bedroom in Alan Palmer's dormer bungalow is like stepping into an art gallery. On display is an array of beautiful wooden objects - from a white-painted model windmill to a collection of exquisite hand-turned lidded pots. All have been made by Alan, a retired engineer who's lived in Bryncrug for 50 years.

Also on show are the many certificates he's won for his craftwork over several years at Bryncrug Country Fair and Abergynolwyn Show.

Alan taught himself wood turning - the art of shaping a spinning piece of wood with hand-held tools on a lathe to create symmetrical forms such as pots, bowls and pens - after his wife Ann died 13 years ago.

While she was ill, Alan took up origami, as it was "something I could do while I was sitting with Ann - it's actually very complicated - but after she passed away I needed something else to play about with. I had a woodturning book, and I taught myself to make lidded pots, which are very difficult. By the time I'd mastered them, I was hooked."

Although woodturning was a new skill, Alan was already an accomplished woodworker: One of his creations, a perfectly-to-scale miniature of the Peter Sam locomotive, from the Rev W Awdry's Railway Series, which he built for his grandson Dylan, is on display in the Talyllyn Railway's Wharf Cafe in Tywyn.

"It's four times smaller than the real thing, and rocks backwards and forwards like a rocking horse. I'd made an actual rocking horse for my granddaughter, Kate, and wanted to make something for Dylan. When he grew out of it, I gave it to the Talyllyn Railway."

Alan's mini Peter Sam on the track at Rhydyronen

Alan has also made at least ten Victorian-style wheelbarrows - all exact copies of one he saw rotting away in the garden of Yr Hen Ysgol (The Old School) in the village about 20 years ago.

"I spotted it as I was walking past," he remembers. "No one was living there at the time, so I nipped in and took some photos. Then I recreated it - including the four-spoked wooden wheel - and it looked really spectacular. I've made lots since - they don't last too long because they're used as planters and are outside at the mercy of the elements - and in fact I've just finished making another four, one for myself and the others for family."

One of the many Victorian-style wheelbarrows Alan's made

As well as crafting things out of wood, Alan - a lifelong motorcyclist - has also lovingly restored several motorbikes, including a 1934 350cc KTS model.

Much of his skillset comes from his background in engineering, which he went into as a young man, even though his first love was farming. Born in Birmingham, Alan developed a love of the Great Outdoors at an early age and hoped for a career in agriculture. "We used to go on holiday to my aunt's cottage in Tenbury Wells and I just loved being outside."

After leaving school at 15, he moved to the Worcestershire town and took a job as a farm labourer. But the pay was so poor he couldn't afford digs of his own, so moved back home and found a job on a farm in Water Orton, just outside Birmingham. The pay wasn't much better, however, so he switched to engineering. "My mother cleaned for a guy who ran an engineering company in Erdington, where we lived, which is how I got the job. I was rubbish academically - I'm dyslexic - but I discovered this was something I could do: I could make anything and do whatever the company required of me."

He later moved to an engineering firm in Aldridge, near Walsall, whose boss, Norman Gardner, had business connections in mid-Wales. When he decided to set up a company in Bryncrug, called Tywyn Turned Parts (TTP), he recruited several of his employees to go with him - including Alan, who already knew the area from walking and camping trips.

In 1975, Alan, Ann and their two small children, Sandra and Michael, were among the first residents to move into Maes-y-Grug, where Alan still lives today. "There are only two of the original residents still here - me and Maureen Robertson," he says.

About eight engineers followed Norman Gardner to Bryncrug, but Alan was one of the few who stayed. "The wives, in particular, didn't always settle because it was very different from the Midlands: there weren't many shops and transport wasn't as easy."

But Alan and Ann's love of walking amidst stunning scenery helped them to settle quickly. Ann joined TTP as a secretary, and in the late 1980s they bought a shop, Tywyn Wine Centre, which they ran between them for several years before selling up.

"For me, this area is the most fantastic place to live," says Alan. "Ann and I used to spend most of our spare time gallivanting in the hills."

Another hobby Alan took up was photography, initially because of his interest in the Isle of Man TT races. "I took on decorating jobs - including painting some of the bungalows in Maes-y-Grug - in order to buy a nice camera." He turned the room in which he now displays his wooden crafts into a dark room, where he and a fellow photographer friend would develop their photos.

He progressed to taking landscape shots of Bryncrug and the surrounding countryside. Some of his most stunning photographs are of the deep snow that blanketed the area in the winter of 1983.

Now aged 85, Alan is still a regular hiker, but recently he's developed problems with his eyesight, leaving him unable to do some of the most intricate work woodturning involves.

"Unfortunately, I've got macular degeneration, which has brought me to a bit of a standstill in terms of woodturning. But I'm trying to adapt and I'm hoping treatment will improve my eyesight sufficiently to allow me to show someone else how to do it. It would be nice to pass the technique on."