Jeff Hopewell

Jeff Hopewell has been interested in collecting small antiques from an early age. His fascination for lace bobbins stems from the nucleus of half a dozen, all that remained of the many once used by his great-grandmother, a Northamptonshire lacemaker. These inspired him to acquire a representative collection, to research the history of lacemaking and to learn to make lace himself. Over the past few years his attention has been captured by ganjifa, the traditional hand-painted playing cards of India, and his most recent writings have been on this deeply obscure subject. Jeff is a clergyman in the Church of england, carrying on the tradition of ecclesiastical eccentrics.