Jeremy Heber

A LIFE LIVED LARGELY IN DIRT

Jeremy was born, at a very early age, in Evesham during 1966 and is believed, according to the laws of cause and effect, to be a direct result of the Beatles’ song “Love, love me do”.

Four years later he moved, coincidentally at the same time as his parents, to Bath, where he was brought up and educated,after a fashion, at the cream of local comprehensive schools. He left at the age of seventeen with various qualifications of dubious worth and then spent a year working for a Christian youth organisation on a one-man mission to make school assemblies at least bearable for the thousands of innocent children who are subjected to this subtle form of torture on a daily basis.

Following this he then went to Lampeter in West Wales to study English for three years at Saint David’s University College in the company of the 700 other students and a significantly larger number of sheep.

Fleeing from there in 1988 and finding himself in London, he took up jewellery making as the logical next step after having completed an English degree. (To this day he still cannot spoll.)

A year later he married a beautiful and unwitting girl called Jacqui who is currently teaching primary school children in order to acquire enough patience to be able to spend more time with her husband. In 1995 they moved to a house in Winchester and Jeremy set about converting the whole building into an extended workshop.

Two years later driven out by Jacqui who wanted a small part of her world free from dirt, strange chemicals and polishing dust and by his neighbours who said, “The noise isn’t a problem but you have one machine that makes our windows rattle”, Jeremy moved to a workshop just down the road (whilst continuing to sleep at home)

As the business grew Jeremy began to supply a wide range of shops and galleries around the country and also to make bespoke ranges for companies such as Thomas Pink and the Henley Royal Regatta. To help him deal with the increased demand for his work he employed a series of luckless slaves who worked with him and mocked him relentlessly.

Alongside his various ranges in silver and gold he also undertakes individual commissions and has been known to produce some truly hideous pieces at his customer’s behest. In such cases he manages to stifle any dormant aesthetic sense by remembering the maxim “The customer is always rich.”

In the few hours in which he is not making jewellery, Jeremy is to be found fly-fishing beside one of Hampshire’s famous Chalk-streams. He wishes to make it known that this activity has absolutely nothing to do with maggots or with sitting motionless for hours under a big green umbrella. He has also recently taken up basketball as a vital part of his mid-life crisis and because he can’t afford a sports car. He plays in the 1st division of the West of England Basketball Association league and hobbles along in the wake of his team mates, pretending that he is still 25 years old like the rest of them.

Jeremy and Jacqui have a twelve year old child called Rebecca, or “Spudge” to her friends, and a nine year old boy called Daniel. Their arrival strengthened Jeremy’s resolve to get the business under control so that he can see a little more of them (For some years Spudge referred to the workshop “Daddies house”.)

With this in mind he recently divested himself of his staff, moved to Portishead (a small town tucked into the armpit of Bristol) and found a workshop just around the corner from his home. He now works there in glorious isolation and sometimes loses the power of speech for days at a time.

In some distant future, when he is not working quite so hard, Jeremy and Jacqui would like to travel and maybe use the experience that they have gained from business and education in some kind of development work. One day you may find them begging by the side of the road in some far-flung Indian village; if so, please give generously.
Thank you.