In an effort to reverse the decline of handmade English crystal and revive the skills of master craftsmen, a mother and son teamed up to form Epitomi Crystal

Christopher Hurst
I like being my own boss and having the freedom to design what I want, without constraints. I went into business with my mother straight after school, so I think I'd find it nigh on impossible to work for someone else, although the hours would be more civilised.

The biggest challenge for a small business is always going to be money, especially early on, when you're starting up and looking for clients. To set up a glassworks takes a massive investment of capital. Furnaces are expensive to run. But we want people to recognise the difference between proper handmade crystal and mass-produced rubbish. That's what killed the English glass industry: lack of recognition from the general public of a quality piece of glass. The manufacturing disappeared off to eastern Europe for price reasons, but we do it the old-fashioned, fiddly, long-winded way, for the quality.

Designing the Epitomi range was great fun. It took about six months. We did a lot of sketching on the floor in chalk, letting the designs evolve, rather than sitting down doing lots of drawings.

Mother and I both want to make English glass as best we can, and better than anyone else does. We share a passion for design and quality. We're always thinking: "How well can we do this?"

We're different in the way we approach things. I tend to come from an analytical perspective. Mother can be a bit more emotional about things, which makes it interesting sometimes.

It seems to work itself out most of the time. We're not in the habit of phoning each other at 10pm and saying, "You were wrong about that contract." We try to keep work separate from our home lives.

I try to say, "That's it finished for the day, let's leave it until tomorrow," but nine times out of 10 I fail miserably and sit up doing quotes or designs for people.

Because we are mother and son, our roles have divided very naturally. There are things she's good at that I'm terrible at, so we both play to our strengths and counteract each other's weaknesses. Mother's brilliant at talking to customers and getting them excited about the product. Once she's done that, I come in and work out how we do it, the nitty-gritty of how long we should make this bit of glass, where we cut it, what colour it will be.

I admire Mother's sheer belief in what we're doing. It makes working with her difficult sometimes, but it's worth it. English manufacturing isn't dead and never will be, as long as people care about what we're making and selling.

Mary Hurst
We started off as the Original Perfume Bottle Company and used to get other companies to manufacture glass scent bottles to our design. But we were finding that they were either going out of business or the quality was bad. We begged, borrowed and stole the money to set up our own glassworks. We have a business partner, Paul Humblestone, who has been a good friend for 20 years, and he was willing to invest.

It was a tremendous effort to find funding, but we bought an acid polishing company, which did cutting and sandblasting, so that we could keep their skills and do our corporate work from there. When Epitomi really takes off, we'll have our own polishing plant and won't have to rely on anyone else.

I just want to produce beautiful, handmade English crystal. Everything that has an English brand now is made abroad and I think that's terribly sad. All the skills are gone and there's nobody left.

Christopher works incredibly hard and I'm very proud of him. He's out in the blowing shop all day, ramps up the furnace for the evening, and then he's back in the office for an hour or two until 9pm. It's a long day. We have a master glass-blower, and together they're a great team because Christopher is very technically minded. He has the know-how—a vast, amazing knowledge.

You've got to do everything and anything and forget who's boss. My glass-blower says: "Whoever comes in first is boss." Considering the amount of stress and pressure we're under, I think we do OK, actually. Christopher and I have worked together since he left school, so we do all right.

I'd like Epitomi to become a successful mail-order business. We're prepared for growth and taking on new staff. There's nobody in England doing what we're doing and I hope that differentiates us.