It often seems that far less importance is paid to craftsmanship nowadays and it is easy to feel that we are losing many of the traditional skills which our forefathers excelled at - although you do still find some gems here and there, if you know where to find them.

So many products seem to be mass-made in factories rather than by hand or small machinery. They are also not built to last which goes against everything that craftsmen of a century or so ago believed in.

I still have furniture handed down to me by my grandparents which will last for many years to come; and yet many people prefer to buy their furniture at the cheapest price and with the lowest quality so that they have to replace within a couple of years.

You also don't see as many family businesses as you used to. Design and craft skills used to be handed down from father to son over generations. Much of this has been lost and there are many traditional areas where there are just a few scattered craftsmen around the country.

It is extremely sad to see this evolution from skilled to mass-made and from long-lasting to short-lived, but there are some craftsmen actively fighting this trend and we should support them to prevent this part of our history dying out.