BLACKSMITH Eddie Payne from Aldbourne has been forging links across the Atlantic with colleagues in Canada.

He has just returned from spending a month in Canada as a guest of their annual blacksmiths' convention called Caniron

Mr Payne who has just reached retiring age was invited to Canada by the Ontario Artist Blacksmith Association.

CanironIV was the fourth time the event had been held in Hamilton in Ontario.

Fortunately for Mr Payne he has a cousin living in London, Ontario, Fred Smallbone, formerly from Hampshire who emigrated 25 years ago, and Mr Payne and his wife Anne stayed with him.

There were more than 300 blacksmiths taking part but he was the only one from Britain or Europe.

Mr Payne, whose forge is at Littlecote House, said: "I met blacksmiths from as far south as Florida and as far north as Alaska.

"I had a lot to learn from them and I hope they had something to learn from me as well."

He had packed audiences on the days when he was demonstrating his skills at the exhibition.

His tools were too heavy to be transported so he gave the Canadian organisers a list of the tools and equipment he needed and it was all laid-on when he arrived.

Mr Payne was trained as a traditional blacksmith and his work can be seen in the wrought iron entrance gates of many country houses and stately homes in the UK and as far away as Nassau where he was commissioned to make and erect gates.

Over the last 25 years or so, he began to incorporate more artistic work into his forge and developed a range of steel monk figures.

It was the monks that he was asked to make at the Canadian exhibition and at the end of it his work, which included a Grim Reaper and a gravedigger, were auctioned together with everything else made at Caniron exhibition.

Mr and Mrs Payne had plenty of time to see the country and were taken around by his cousin to see the national parks and the Great Lakes.

They were saddened on one of their trips to see a huge forest fire in the Rocky Mountains devouring thousands of acres of forest and countryside.The flames were heading towards a village called Trapper Creek when they visited and they later read, said Mr Payne, that the whole village was engulfed and destroyed by the flames.

Mr Payne is gradually giving up the heavier side of his craft and concentrating more on his artistic work.

He was trained by the late Aldbourne village blacksmith Alan Liddiard but said there was no one to follow on in his footsteps.

His son prefers to work as car mechanic.