Bridewell Organic Gardens is an independent mental health charity based in rural West Oxfordshire. From 2002 to 2007 I was the Gardens' resident blacksmith.

I worked alongside men and women in recovery from mental illness, teaching them to forge steel. For me, the work was a revelation – process, not product, became the focus of my concentration.

I'd come to blacksmithing because of the violence I'd witnessed as a child. Forgework had been about transforming trauma, making something beautiful out of experiences that were ugly and humiliating. At Bridewell I discovered that I wasn't alone in experiencing that catharsis.