Alex Monroe 
Two Turtle Doves 
A Memoir of Making Things

»I imagine its being rediscovered with delight in some dusty book case a century hence and hailed as a classic»
Spectator


»A wonderful book, a hymn to the pleasurable process of making things»
The Times



Two Turtle Doves is the story of a life spent making things.


Growing up in 1970s Suffolk in a crumbling giant of a house with wild, tangled gardens, Alex Monroe was left to wreak havoc by invention. Without visible parental influence, but with sisters to love him and brothers to fight for him, he made nature into his world.



Creation became a compulsion, whether it was go-carts and guns, cross-bows and booby-traps, boats, bikes or scooters. And then, it was jewellery.



From full-out warfare waged against the local schoolboys to the freedom found in daredevil Raleigh bike antics to the delicacies of dress-making and the most intricate designs for jewellery,
Two Turtle Doves traces the intimate journey of how an idea is transformed from a fleeting thought into an exquisite piece of jewellery. It is about where we find our creativity, how we remember and why we make the things we do.