Poppy Pawsey

“I had been a bit of a nightmare child but once I discovered music, I was obsessed. It changed everything and I ended up serving for 12 years in the Royal Marines Band Service. I absolutely loved my job, but one day, when we were rehearsing for Prince Phillip’s birthday, my right hip just went – and it never got better. It got to the point where standing for ten minutes was excruciating. Bear in mind that things like Prince William and Princess Kate’s wedding involved standing on parade for four hours. I just couldn’t do my job anymore. 

I fell into a deep depression, which is something I thought would never affect me, but the Invictus Games gave me a reason to get out of bed. I was very lucky to get selected for Team UK to compete in the Toronto Games in 2017. I won a bronze medal for swimming and it was genuinely life changing. After that, I wasn’t sure what to do with my life. I knew I needed a creative outlet which previously had always been music. I’ve always loved doing ceramics and jewellery, so I considered that – but I was searching and floundering. 

One day over brunch, my brother mentioned that he thought I’d be good at marquetry. He’s a cabinet maker and had done work with Silverlining, so he got out their Instagram and showed me and I agreed they looked amazing. He sent an email to introduce me and I went in and met them. As soon as I stepped into the VIP room with all the samples, it literally brought me to tears because – just like with the Royal Marines and my music – everything was done to such a high standard. I wanted a job so much – and luckily they took a punt on me and decided to train me up. The only way I can describe it is fate. 

Marquetry is the art of applying pieces of veneer to a structure to form decorative patterns or designs. We create the flat lay-on that will then get put onto furniture; you do hand cutting with a knife or a laser – so you have to do a lot of computer programming too. There is so much to it and so many processes involved. The great thing about Silverlining is that there is extensive R&D and you’re always encouraged to try things and push boundaries. When I joined they were doing the marquetry panels that they won an award for – and I got to have a go at it when we were inputting the gold and the mother of pearl. It was wild! 

The games table for Motor Yacht Kismet was my first solo project and there was a lot to it. You’re putting wood into wood, it’s a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. If you look closely at the butterflies, they are kind of wrapped around the backgammon points, so everything is done in layers. You’d do one layer, put it back on the laser, cut into that for the next layer and it continues like that. So once you’re about six layers in, you’re like ‘please don’t mess up now,’ because then that would be all of your work ruined. With Silverlining it’s all about perfection – it has to be the best of the best.

It meant so much to win the award after being so unhappy and then coming into this job and finding what I was meant to do again. There was so much emotion in me because it meant all of that hardship was worth it. My journey had come to this and it felt like a lovely end point to that chapter. We’ll just see what happens next! 

The acoustics in the workshop here are amazing and there have been a few times where a song has come on and I’ve wanted to sing. I’ve asked the team if I would ever be able to play my saxophone in there if there was an evening after work that I felt like I wanted to try to get back into music. They’ve said if it will help me that they will do anything, which is amazing. They don’t even know half of my story! 

The future? If I look back at the last seven years, I could never have foreseen any of the things that I did happening, so who knows?! I am just going to keep being creative and stay curious. There will always be something interesting going on in my life, that’s just the way it’s always been.”