I was about to leave school at 15 and my brother asked me if I would like to try out to be a diamond polisher as they were looking for more staff and liked the fact you had family working there also.

That’s a difficult one as I have done this now for 55 years and have done many exciting big stones - I suppose the most valuable would be 2 stones, both of them 15 ct plus, each vivid blue and flawless my guess now is a minimum of 40 million each. Both stones turned out better than we hoped so we were all very happy.

I would never say nervous as I have been doing it for a long time but as I tell the boys I have trained over the years the diamond you are working on has taken millions of years to develop so treat it with the respect it deserves and do your upmost to make it look as good as possible.

I don’t think people understand what diamond polishing about and how much time is goes into evaluating the stone before we even start on a stone. In some cases, it can be weeks or months to make a final decision on a very large stone, but the same care is given to smaller stones.

People think you polish diamonds with a cloth but when I do exhibitions, they understand the complexities of the job and most are frightened of having a go because they don’t want to break one but as I told them that’s hard to do but not impossible.

That again is a difficult question as most designs have already been made. Over my career I have made quite a few different designs, but you can only do so much as you need to evaluate the stone and see what can be done.

I would always try to make you something different if possible if that was your wish but would consult with you before making the diamond to your choice.