Nostalgia: Aussie donors come out the woodwork
A Batley schoolboy who was carving out a career as a woodturner earned the attention of like-minded men from as far away as Australia in 1984.
David Dalby, 17, who was studying at Batley Boys’ High School for A-levels in woodwork, mathematics and economics, spent every spare moment in his workshop at his home in Nursery Wood, Hanging Heaton.
But frustrated by the price of materials, he wrote to specialist magazine The Woodturner to complain. This caught the attention of the two men from Australia, one of which sent him a set of exotic woods and the other a set of tools.
After his studies, Davied hoped to gain a place at a college of furniture design and set up a business as a cabinet maker.