Richard was always close to his father. Barred as a young child from the interesting, but sharp contents, of his father's toolbox, Richard became intrigued by an old bone-handled penknife his father kept in his box. "He'd trained as a joiner and I was always fascinated by the way he could sharpen a pencil with it so it looked as if a pencil-sharpener had done it."

One day, the nine-year-old Richard noticed the toolbox open, and feeling the pull of the forbidden, he finally got his hands on the coveted penknife. thinking there wasn't much harm in just borrowing it, Richard took it. Soon after he heard his father ranting, "Where's my penknife?" "I couldn't replace it," says Richard, "I'd have been for the high jump. If I'd put it back he'd have known it was me who took it." Richard's dad never asked his son if he'd seen his missing penknife.

Time passed, and Richard's father forgot about his knife. Richard said nothing. "I used to take it to school," he confesses, "I had to be careful which pocket I left it in, in case my mother found it. Nervous times!" When Richard left home at seventeen, the knife went with him, still hidden amongst his belongings.

Thirty years later Richard still hadn't owned up. "I was living in France at the time, my father was over and we chatted as I worked on a car. As my eyes fell on the penknife in my tool box, I got a sudden rush of anxiety. His eyes fell on it at the same time. I thought he'd recognised it. He hadn't - it was a recognition of quality and he took it out and handled it." Richard still said nothing, "I was in a state of panic - I was like a young child who'd been caught." But all Richard's dad said was, "They don't make them like this anymore." At that point, Richard owned up. "I was a bit disappointed by my father's reaction because the weight of that penknife for me over the years was enormous, but for him it was a light-hearted moment. I don't think he even remembered losing it."

Richard treasured the penknife even more. "At my father's funeral, I had his penknife in my pocket. I thought, 'They don't make them like this anymore.' The whole history of the knife means a lot more to me than something I inherited from my father. I just wish I could sharpen a pencil with it like he could."