Michael Jennings

The Mobile Saddler

Society of Master Saddlers Registered Saddler and Saddle Fitter

Starting out

I began training as a saddler in the early 1970's after I left the King’s Troop. I attended the Cordwainers College in Hackney, East London where I studied for my City & Guilds qualifications under the guidance of saddlery tutor Mike Huline-Dickens (a Fellow of The Society of Master Saddlers and also a Member of The Worshipful Company of Saddlers. I began working for myself soon after leaving Cordwainers

I may not be in formal training anymore but I am  still learning new things.

I left school in 1966 aged 15 to start work at Frith Manor Stables in North London, a job I really enjoyed and a place I returned to a number of times over the years; I still keep contact with Betty Turner, the proprietor, who unfortunately is now not so well.

In 1968 at the age of  17 I joined the Kings Troop, Royal Horse Artillery  where I had my first experience of life in the saddlers workshop. Always good with my hands and wanting a trade connected with horses, but one which paid better than a groom this was to be the pathway down which I was to go.

The business

Learning the trade

I have always enjoyed working with my hands, making things or mending them so becoming a proper saddler was an easy choice for me. Standing (or sitting) at my bench I get a lot of satisfaction working with materials and transforming them into something useful.

I am not a shopkeeper or salesman and never have never been, which is just as well because I don’t think I would be very good at it.