Meet a member of the Conway Stewart Team!

I was born in Plymouth, I had a very happy childhood and was fortunate to marry my childhood sweetheart, Phillip, whom I met when I was at school. We have now been happily married for 24 years. Phill is a loving husband and devoted father to our handsome sons Jonathane 20 and Thomas 18 years. Jonathane is currently in his second year at The Plymouth University studying Business Studies, he has recently been offered a one year work placement in a very distinguished company in the UK and starts this September as a Marketing Assistant. Both Phill & myself are so very proud of him. Thomas is currently working towards an apprenticeship within the painting & decorating industry. Both boys also work part time as lifeguards at a local leisure centre also helping with gym subscriptions. I am very proud my two boys.
Now that our boys are all grown up, Phill and I are able to enjoy our time together. Our passion is for our three dogs -- Shadow, a Labrador who is our eldest at 13 years, our German Shepherd Quenna at 3 and a half years old, and her son Saffy at only 18 months. They are like our second children and definitely keep us both on our toes and active. We attend weekly obedience classes with the Shepherds and enter them in shows all over the UK.

Let me tell you a bit about myself...

I started working at Conway Stewart in 2004 as a pen maker. Back in those days our production was focused primarily on resin pen models, as opposed to today with our much wider range including many pieces in precious metals.

I would love to say that my life is a bed of roses, but unfortunately like most others, our family has had our share of heartache. Just three years ago Phillip’s mother lost her fight with cancer. It was a very hard time for my family but I feel we pulled through it stronger then ever. I have known my fair share of cancer suffers and so earlier this year I decided to join the race for life campaign in order to raise money for Cancer research. The day of this 5K race turned out to be one of the hottest days this year and this did make things difficult, however I ended up enjoying every second of it. I entered the race with my friend Beate and her daughter Vannessa, which made the going a bit easier with all three of us supporting each other through the race. My family, friends and everyone here at Conway Stewart were very supportive with this fund raising event. I really do believe one person can make a difference! I think we try to keep that attitude here at Conway Stewart as well, it’s always nice to think that each pen we’ve made during the day is going to end up as someone’s prize possession.

A fond memory for me from this time is recalling the precise swaging process for the 3 gold rings on the 58 series caps. A tremendous amount of difficult work for three simple gold rings!

The most stressful, if not downright terrifying job from those days was when using the engraver on solid gold pens. This was always a “one time only” event, as if it went wrong then the whole pen would not go through quality control and would need to be melted down as scrap gold, and the pen started again from scratch. I am pleased to pass this responsibility onto Gill now; she is much calmer when engraving pens no matter what material they are made of!

While I very much enjoyed my time with the production team, I eventually moved into working in the office in 2006. My role is centred on the accounts department, combined with communicating with both customers and our suppliers. I feel I have the best of both worlds, as I am allowed to watch our beautiful pens being produced and also have input on pen names and colours.

My recent pen colour was the Marble Ice, this was a fantastic seller in the Wellington 50 pen edition and sold out in days. I did manage to purchase one myself to give my husband to add to his small collection of fine pens. I very much love being involved with the business of Conway Stewart, and enjoy the challenge of striving to improve each year as the market changes.

 

Question: What was your favourite pen model during your pen maker days?

Linda: Duro, pretty much unisex in size and weight, great colour choice.

Question: What was the most time consuming pen model to make?

Linda: Churchill & 58 series Lever fill, much more skill involved with creating a lever fill pen.

Question: Have you noticed a different trend for today’s pen designs?

Linda: Yes the trend is moving towards precious metal pens with a chosen limited edition number.

Linda Archer
Conway Stewart

 

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