A lifetime award has been presented to Ramsgate resident Nick Checksfield for his dedication and skill in a critically endangered craft which he first discovered as part of plans for a wedding proposal.
Since 1992 Nick has been making mail {often referred to as chain mail} and carries out restoration for museums, private collectors and dealers.
He also lectures and brings his own brand of ‘Horrible Histories’ to both primary and secondary schools- complete with armour and swords!
The dad-of-one had an unusual introduction to the craft. He said: “I was going to ask someone to marry me and didn’t want to do it like my friend – in a car park with a chip up his nose- I wanted a more romantic way of doing things.
“I went to a museum and thought ‘what could I make’ and looked at the mail and ended up making a ‘shirt.’
“I had her ‘kidnapped’ and then rescued her, wearing the shirt and armour!”
The relationship may not have been one to last but the fascination with mail making did.
Nick, 52, said: “Off the back of that I met a chap called Pete Butler {of Saxon Village Crafts} who did living history, that’s different to re-enactments and isn’t waving swords about.
“In the group each person had their own craft and because of the dedication I had shown he said to come and do a couple of events with them.
“For the next 20 years I did events with him until he retired and progressed from being a beggar to a pilgrim and then became the person doing the arms and armour.”
Throughout that time Nick was making mail, sometimes ‘knitting’ his pieces during quiet periods while he worked for the London ambulance service.
He said: “Making mail involves thousands and thousands of rings that push together. Depending on what sort of coat you are making it could take anything between 15,000 and 500,000 rings. My first coat was 50,000 rings and I later progressed to rivetted mail which is how it was traditionally done.
“In Medieval times entire towns would be making it and each person would do their own job but I do all of it myself so it takes me a lot longer as I don’t have a 100 people! From scratch it can take eight months to a year.”
The red listed craft is niche. There are only four listed craftspeople – soon to be five, One is the King’s armourer, the other is Nick and the remaining three are all people taught by Nick.
Nick says many re-enactors will buy their outfits from India because of the cost but, he adds, these are poor quality and he sometimes is asked to help people make the items fit.
He says: “It is like the difference between Primark and Savile Row.”
As well as teaching apprentices Nick has worked on projects including a 4th Century BC Celtic mail that was found in Kent; travelling to Prague as part of a team to examine the ‘King’ Wenceslaus armour for the museum there and helping to stage a huge two day jousting tournament in Switzerland.
Nick said: “Wenceslas is their patron saint so it was seriously holy. I was sent there to examine {the armour} and had to go through three metal detectors and had a chap with a gun behind me. Every time I went towards it the chap moved with his gun!”
Nick is also hands on when he teaches in schools. He said: “I turn up with all the gear and swords and bits and bobs. The kids try the helmet on and I tell them nasty stories.”
He says his motto is ‘I hear- I forget, I see – I remember, I do – I understand.’
Nick was presented with a Heritage Crafts Lifetime Achievement Award supported by the Marsh Charitable Trust during a special presentation at Eltham Palace on Tuesday 26 November.
Heritage Crafts was set up 14 years ago as a national charity to support and safeguard heritage crafts skills.
The award celebrates a heritage craftsperson who has demonstrated an outstanding contribution to their specific craft over 25 years or more.
Nick says he was ‘stunned’ to receive the award after being nominated by his former apprentice and now listed mail maker Phil Parkes.
He added: “You could have knocked me down with a feather! It is the first thing I have ever won.”
The Heritage Crafts charity says: “Nick Checksfield is one of only a couple of professional mail (sometimes known as ‘chain mail’) makers working in the UK today, and of these, he is by far the most experienced.
“The restoration of original, historical pieces is a huge challenge, requiring the making of mail links in a bewildering range of styles and types. Nick has fashioned new armour pieces for some of the most famous competition jousters and historical martial artists around the world.”
Surely there cannot be two of them!!
Nope Stevieboy, I think they are one and the same! Still, it keeps him off the streets, as my mother used to say, to anyone who she disliked, but who was harmless!