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Tuesday, 01 April 2008 11:05
custom sticksWe rarely discover a piece of equipment whose merit stands out by a mile; these exquisite artisan walking aids are an exception—anyone who uses a walking aid should read this, but especially young people and the style-conscious.

Handcrafted from natural Australian timbers by Paul Pickford, every walking stick is at once uniquely individual, artistic and practical. Some of Paul’s sticks sport handles carved in the shapes of dolphins, wombats, platypuses, horses, ducks or geckos, and all are fully handcrafted, using traditional woodworking tools and oils. Even the warm golds and reds of the timber colour stains are old English recipes.

Paul also makes sticks to custom designs, to suit the height, handle-type preference and artistic tastes of his customer.

stick 1The sticks are hugely popular with people who want their walking stick to be a positive statement about themselves. Paul’s wife Merilyn, who travels with Paul to festivals to sell the sticks, told Work’n’Care that the sticks are ‘sold quite a lot to young people diagnosed with MS—they don’t want a hospital stick, with all the clanking aluminium’.

“If someone needs a walking aid, it’s nice to have something you’re proud of, that says something about you as a person,” she said.

Paul said, “Some people walk away with one of the handcrafted sticks, come back in six months and say, ‘I love my stick! I feel good when I walk with it.’”

He told us how he crafted the dolphin handle (pictured) ‘for a man who wanted something very classy’. The young man had MS, and Paul custom-made the stick to match his height and love of dolphins. Paul laughed that he never made any money out of it, once you factored in the time spent working, but he said ‘you get the delight’. Paul makes sticks for everyone from six-foot men to dwarfs—including one striking stick with a skull carved into a black handle, requested by a lady with dwarfism who wanted to scare off the rough blokes who otherwise harassed her at clubs because of her petiteness.

We asked Paul why he started work at this craft. “I spent five years looking for an occupation for the ‘third stage’ of my life,” the grey-haired Paul winked. “I was first a farmer, then a minister, and now a ‘stick dresser’—that’s the proper English term.

“Plus there was the obvious need in the community for a stylish walking stick in Australia. I realised this when I needed one for my father.”

Another overwhelming advantage of buying one of Paul’s sticks is the preference of physiotherapists for Paul’s ‘thumb-sticks’ (pictured). We asked Merilyn to explain.

She said they had been surprised when physiotherapists and their clients began approaching them with encouraging comments about the sticks. “They want for people with MS and Parkinson’s in particular to walk with a stick that holds them upright and is higher than a traditional walking stick, with the height set so their arm is parallel to the ground.

“Our thumb sticks do that. It immediately helps with posture, and on an uneven ground or going up and down steps, you don’t have to lean down as you would with a traditional stick, so the stick prevents that tendency to topple—a real advantage. They work like a third leg for balance.

“We didn’t realise this when Paul first started making them, but then physios started approaching us.”

Anyone who wishes to ask Paul or Merilyn about the sticks can use the contact information below.


Workshop:
71 Centenary Ave
Cootamundra, NSW 2590

Phone: 02 6942 2427
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