Meet the Northamptonshire carver taking on the woodworking version of The Great British Bake Off

A Northamptonshire woodcarver is among the 10 contestants on a new television competition, styled as the woodworking version of The Great British Bake Off.

Glyn Mould will be whittling, carving and sawing his way through The Chop: Britain's Top Woodworker, which premieres on Sky History tonight (Thursday, October 15).

The 55-year-old craftsman and teacher from King's Cliffe, near Corby, believes the show is the perfect tonic for the nation's coronavirus woes.

"I think a lot of people will think about taking up woodwork as a diversion from all our troubles that we're all going through because of this programme," he told this newspaper.

"It's timed perfectly and in times of crisis that's a good thing to turn to your own interests - I've managed to turn my hobby into a way of life so I know the benefits of this show.

"It was great fun to film and great to meet other people of a similar mindset."

Glyn discovered his passion for woodwork at school and set up his own carving business aged 18, which he still runs from Cambridgeshire.

A lifetime of hard work has led him to become one of the most renowned carvers in the UK, having been commissioned by MPs, the Houses of Parliament and the Lord Mayor of London.

Glyn has also built signs for several villages in Northamptonshire, including Bozeat, Kislingbury and Wollaston, as well as work for churches and many other organisations, on top of his workshops.

He saw an advert for The Chop contestants in a magazine and decided to apply after years of complaining about the lack of a woodworking TV contest.

"I've been telling people that come to my classes that it's such a shame there's no woodworking version of the Bake Off or The Great Pottery Throw Down," he said.

"Then up came The Chop so I thought I would find out about it and got hooked on the idea and thought I have to give it a go and luckily I was accepted."

Hosted by Lee Mack, Rick Edwards and master craftsmen William Hardie, the competition sees some of the country’s finest joiners gather in Epping Forest to fight for the crown of ‘Britain’s top woodworker’.

Each week there are a series of challenges for contestants to create objects as groups or individuals and one gets voted off at the end of each episode.

The winner will also have the chance to stage their own exhibition at the prestigious William Morris Gallery in London.

The show was filmed last year so Glyn has had to keep quiet about how he did but he greatly enjoyed the experience.

"It was nice having to battle it out on the programme, it was all good fun, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

"I will try to tune in but I don't want to ruin it for anyone by saying what happens, all I can say is it's on for several weeks and it gets more nad more interesting.

"People will be drawn in to it like they are with Bake Off and the Great Pottery Throwdown.

"It's very exciting when we do group challenges especially as you're in a couple of teams and in that regard it's like The Apprentice - that was quite exciting to take part in."

Spending the day making whatever he liked out, all the creations were designed in advance, of all different types of timber with a fully kitted-out workshop was like a dream for Glyn.

But he particularly liked seeing what his fellow contestants made with the same brief.

"All the people on the programme had prior woodworking experience, some were better than others in different fields but that's why the teams worked well," he said.

"But it was nice to see what other people had chosen under a particular theme, like Victorian or Georgian and so on, and we all had different ideas for those periods."