Ian McKay is telling us himself:

"I trained as a ceramicist, although I've always enjoyed using different materials. I've been a silversmith, a blacksmith, furniture designer, a maker of wood engraving blocks, drummer, technician, teacher, gardener, and full time suburban being. Toymaking seems to be the sum of all these experiences. One of the most important days of my life was spent at the Sam Smith/H.C Westermann exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in the early 1980s. To quote my three year old son - 'it knocked me down with a feather'.

But it took me ten years to realise that I could become a toymaker. My first efforts were tiny moving boats made from wire and old matchboxes. A stint working in a highly automated chicken factory whetted my appetite for all things mechanical. My recent work has been done amidst domestic mayhem - since parenthood came my way I have worked in the extended litter of an ebullient toddler. What was once subtitled Art house is now Disney. Visits to the Serpentine are now trips to Bristol Zoo. Radio One is now Radio 2 although the presenters are still the same. And as noisy electronic plastic toys go off sporadically around me I - still working in the 20th or even the 19th Century - use wood, brass rod and paint. The effect of all this is that I have become much more interested in people and their emotions and the absurdities of living."