Roger Bucknall makes very, very fine guitars. I first became aware of him in the early 1970s due to a chance meeting with Gordon Giltrap on a train on the way to a gig somewhere. We fell at once to talking about guitars (well I never) and he started by enthusing about his very new guitar, insisting that he show it to me then and there, which he did and he was right. It was a beautiful piece of work made, he said, by a man in Bournemouth who was thinking about going into the luthier business full time.
When I met that man a few days later and he did an emergency refret on my own guitar I remember being aware of a quiet passion for what he was doing as a hobby and wondered when he would take the plunge. It wasn’t long … Martin Carthy