'Fingers must just get in the way' - PHOTO+VIDEO

Annette Gabbedey, 48, creates delicate rings, earrings and bracelets, inset with with diamonds, opals and other precious stones in her workshop in Frome, Somerset.But the expert goldsmith uses no special tools to help her work and says she cannot imagine how people with fingers manage to do it.Mrs Gabbedey said: 'I'm quite normal and not disabled at all.  But I do appreciated that people are fascinated by me being able to create something.'Making jewellery is very tactile, and something you do with your hands, and people ask how I manage to create jewellery, let alone the day to day things.'My answer to that is: "How do you manage with fingers?", because they must get in the way.'Mrs Gabbedey, who says she was always encouraged by her family to 'get out there and sort it out', studied jewellery-making at school and college before training amongst the jewellery experts of London's Hatton Garden.She moved to Somerset 24 years ago, and now has a reputation as one of Britain's finest craftsmen and opal specialists.She said: 'It is just your own perception of how you look at yourself, and for me I was born like it, sod I have never known anything different. The jewellers wears a leather wrist strap under which she slides files if she needs them, and also has a vice to hold pieces while she works on them.She said: 'I just find a different way of doing things.  I have sensitivity all the way through my hands - I can feel everything I am touching and I have got quite a lot of movements in my hands.'It really is just fingers that I am missing.  I've got the joints and the movements which means I have got the dexterity to be able to hold small items.'Mrs Gabbedey says she is happy to answer questions from inquisitive children.She said: 'They need to learn at a young age that this is normal, and this world is made up of all different types of people.'People see my work first, and then they see me and think "Well, she can make this", so it's not really a question.'The most expensive piece she has ever made was a £25,000, 18 carat yellow and white gold boulder opal and diamond necklace, which she made for herself to celebrate 21 years of trading.She said: 'Lots of people have challenges of different types and mine, I suppose, is my hands.'But I don't really see then as a challenge - it is just how they are.'(dailymail.co.uk)ANN.Az