If anyone were to write a book of "101 Things To Do With A Stick", they would have no trouble compiling the sequel "101 More things To Do With A Stick"!

I guess it's true that many of us will become infirm sooner or later and have a need for some sort of walking aid. But let this be an excuse to acquire something we enjoy using, something that looks good, feels good and makes others almost envious of our condition, at least as an excuse to be seen about town with a good-looking walking stick.

Good walking sticks don't happen by accident. They don't grow on trees, you know! They have to be designed and crafted by someone who has the skills to turn the raw materials into a thing of beauty - one which precisely fits both the user and the use to which it will be put.

Recent years have seen the introduction of the "hiking pole", hailed as a new invention developed from the poles used by skiers. In fact, there's nothing new about it at all, it's simply a metal or composite fibre walking stick. Its main selling feature is that it's adjustable for length and can be collapsed when not in use. Well, it's not exactly a thing of beauty, so I guess it needs to be hidden away. It lacks that indefinable individual character of a real stick, at one with both its owner and the environment in which it is being used. The hiking pole is an artefact of modern industrial society that marks out the user as a foreign body in the rural landscape. As for its adjustability, I must concede this can be handy for those who can't be bothered to select a stick of the correct size and style and alter their grip to suit the terrain.

You can also buy factory made sticks quite cheaply. I've seen some quite nice ones lately, but of course, by their nature, they are mass-produced items machine-made from bland and uninteresting materials and poorly finished with a quick spray of lacquer. They also tend to be made on the short side, so that most people can pick one out of the rack and use it, after a fashion, without having it cut to size. As for the traditional mass-produced steam-bent ash or chestnut orthopaedic walking stick, the less said the better. They are clumsy, plug-ugly and suffer from serious design faults. Firstly, the bending process flattens the handle into an uncomfortable shape to grip, and secondly the bend is unstable. At the slightest hint of damp weather, it starts to straighten out. Take a look in any second hand shop and you will see a sorry looking bundle of these things lurking in a dark corner with their handles distorted into unusable shapes.

A real traditional stick is different. The shank will be made from a straight stem of hazel, blackthorn, ash, chestnut, holly or other wood having the right characteristics of size, strength, stiffness, weight, balance and attractive appearance. The wood will have been thoroughly seasoned and carefully selected, discarding pieces that don't come up to scratch. Typically, hazel is best left to season for two years, while blackthorn and holly can take up to seven years. The handle will be fashioned from a suitable hardwood, carefully selected to complement the shank, or from antler or horn. These traditional materials each have their different characteristics, requiring different and sometimes quite arcane techniques to turn them into a good-looking, comfortable, strong and durable stick. There are different traditional shapes of stick to suit the many and varied requirements of different types of user. Crooks, market sticks, thumbsticks, Cardigan sticks, knobsticks, "walker" sticks, wading poles and other types each have their uses. For my own use, I keep a burr elm handled market stick for use around town and mooching around country fairs, markets and car boot sales; a slightly shorter, round-shouldered, rams horn handled market stick for general country walking; and I've recently taken to using a thumbstick for downland walking, where the extra length can be handy on occasions.

It has to be said that not all handmade sticks are equal. I have seen some truly dreadful examples at craft fairs which have clearly been thrown together by someone who has never learnt the finer points of stickmaking and has no appreciation of how a stick should look or feel. At the other end of the scale are superb works of perfection, created with mind-boggling precision with the sole aim of collecting prizes at stick shows. Such sticks, if they are offered for sale, will cost you several arms and legs and leave you afraid to use them in case of scratching them or getting them dirty. They are also not necessarily the most comfortable in use, especially if they are embellished with ornate carvings. I greatly admire the talents involved in creating such works of art, but on the whole I prefer not to go down that path myself. My first priority in making any stick is that it must be well-balanced and comfortable in use. Secondly, that it should be pleasing to the eye and suffer no obvious fault in its design, construction or finish. I think that's enough to be going on with.

Just remember: every hand-made stick is unique, one of a limited edition of just one. Since every piece of wood I use is different and my sticks are made by eye and judgment rather than by measurement, it would be impossible for me to make two identical sticks, even if I tried. The wood tells me by the curl of its grain and by the position, shape and size of its knots and knobbles, what shape it wants to be. I have an image of what shape I want it to be. The shaping process, mostly carried out with simple files, rasps and abrasives, is a two-way dialogue between myself and the piece of wood. During these negotiations, I will "win" some points and concede others in order to bring out the best in the wood. The result, hopefully, will be a stick that expresses a harmonic union of these points of view.