Week Six: Libraries, Legacies, and the Art of Not Stepping on Toes

I'm writing this on Monday morning, 13th October 2025, after what can only be described as a rather extraordinary week. There's something profoundly surreal about receiving an email informing you that your book – the thing you poured a decade's worth of experience into – will be permanently housed in some of Britain's most prestigious institutions. It's the sort of news that makes you sit down rather suddenly with a cup of tea and stare at the wall for a bit.

But before I get too philosophical about legacy and mortality (a very British pastime, I assure you), let me back up and tell you properly about these past six weeks. Because whilst the library request was certainly the headline event, there's been rather a lot happening: celebratory dinners with mentors, continued struggles with salsa choreography, growing confidence in the retail world, and the early stirrings of competition preparation.

Sometimes I think life delivers its most significant moments in clusters, as if the universe enjoys dramatic pacing as much as any good storyteller.

The Email That Changed Everything (Or: How I Became Immortal in Cambridge)

Last week, I received an email that I had to read three times before the meaning properly sank in. The Legal Deposit Libraries – those venerable institutions tasked with preserving the written word for posterity – were requesting copies of "The CAD/CAM Jeweller" for permanent archival.

Not just any libraries, mind you. The National Library of Wales. The National Library of Scotland. Cambridge University. Oxford University. Trinity College Dublin.

I'll confess: I sat there in my Birmingham flat, holding my phone, feeling rather like a character in a film who's just been told they've won something improbable. These are institutions where Shakespeare's first folios reside. Where Newton's manuscripts are kept. Where centuries of human knowledge have been carefully catalogued and preserved.

And now, apparently, my little book about CAD/CAM jewellery design will sit on those shelves too.

The practical Iranian part of my brain immediately went to logistics: How many copies do they need? When's the deadline? What's the posting procedure? But the part of me that's spent eight years building a life in Britain, that queued for citizenship ceremonies and wrestled with bureaucratic forms and finally held that dark blue passport just weeks ago – that part went utterly quiet with something approaching awe.

Published in May 2025, "The CAD/CAM Jeweller" represents ten years of work behind the scenes as a jewellery technician. It's every late night troubleshooting CAD files, every technique learned through trial and error, every principle and standard I wish someone had taught me when I started. I wrote it partly because I needed to – a culmination of a chapter before moving into new territories – and partly because I wanted to leave something useful behind.

But I never quite imagined it would be "behind" in quite this way.

What strikes me most is the accessibility. Students at Cambridge working on their dissertations will be able to reference it. Researchers at Oxford exploring modern jewellery manufacturing will find it in their catalogues. Decades from now – long after I've shuffled off – someone in Scotland might pull it off a shelf, blow the dust off (do libraries still get dusty, or is that just in films?), and learn something that helps them design their own piece of jewellery.

It's a legacy. A small one, perhaps, in the grand scheme of things, but tangible. Permanent. Real.

Rather fitting timing, really, given that I started reading my own book this past Sunday. Not out of vanity, I should clarify, but out of necessity. My new role as a Sales Consultant at Mappin & Webb requires comprehensive knowledge not just of watches – which I'm learning daily – but of fine jewellery as well. And whilst I've spent ten years in the industry, I'd forgotten rather a lot of the technical details I'd written down.

There's something both humbling and amusing about having to study your own textbook. It's like cooking from a recipe you wrote whilst drunk – you recognise the handwriting, but you're not entirely sure what you were thinking at the time.

Still, if students at prestigious universities are going to read it, I suppose I ought to know what's in it as well.

A Dinner with Dauvit: Eight Years in the Making

Thursday evening found me in the Chinese Quarter, sitting across from someone who fundamentally altered the trajectory of my British life, though I didn't fully realise it at the time.

When you immigrate to a new country – especially one as culturally specific as Britain, with its unwritten rules and subtle social codes – you're rather vulnerable. Not physically, necessarily, but psychologically. You're constantly second-guessing yourself, wondering if you belong, if your skills translate, if anyone will see past your accent and your unfamiliarity with the local way of doing things.

In my first months in Britain, eight years ago now, two people changed that calculus entirely. Both British, one man and one woman, both of whom saw something in me that I wasn't entirely sure was there myself. They believed in my abilities when I was still finding my footing, supported me far beyond what was required, and fundamentally shaped my confidence and self-understanding as I built this new life.

I want to write about both of them, but the timing isn't quite right for the other story. The woman who became my unlikely angel deserves her own post when circumstances are... well, better than they are now. My heart rather aches with missing her, if I'm honest, but some stories need to wait for their proper moment.

But Dauvit – I can write about Dauvit now.

He was my senior tutor at the jewellery school where I first studied upon arriving in Britain. Course Leader, officially, though that title doesn't quite capture what he did. He recognised something in me early on – an aptitude, perhaps, or just a particular kind of determination that comes from having crossed continents and cultures to pursue a specific dream. He supported me beyond his official responsibilities, pushed me when I needed pushing, believed in my potential when I was still building the evidence for it.

Eight years later, that teacher-student relationship has evolved into something rather more valuable: friendship. The sort that endures not because of institutional proximity but because of genuine mutual respect and affection.

Thursday's dinner was ostensibly to celebrate my citizenship and passport – those documents that arrived a few weeks ago and continue to feel slightly miraculous every time I see them. We chose a lovely restaurant in the Chinese Quarter, all red lacquer and atmospheric lighting, and spent the evening talking about past, present, and future over duck and rice.

The duck, I should mention, was spectacular. There's something about the way Chinese restaurants prepare duck – the way the sauce clings to the meat, glossy and rich – that elevates it beyond mere poultry into something approaching art. If you're ever in a Chinese restaurant and uncertain what to order, choose the duck. You won't regret it.

But more important than the food was the conversation, and even more important than that was a small milestone: after eight years of friendship, we finally took a photograph together. Just the two of us, documented proof that this unlikely connection between a Scottish jewellery tutor and an Iranian immigrant-turned-designer actually exists.

It's funny, isn't it, how some of our most significant relationships remain unphotographed for years? As if the depth of connection makes the documentation feel almost redundant. We know we matter to each other; why do we need a picture to prove it?

But we have one now, taken in a Chinese restaurant in Birmingham, both of us grinning, me in my jacket and Dauvit with his magnificent beard and distinctive glasses, looking exactly like the brilliant craftsman and teacher he is.

I'm profoundly fortunate to have people like Dauvit in my path. Sometimes I think about the sliding doors nature of life – how different things might have been if I'd enrolled in a different course, or if he'd been on sabbatical that term, or if he'd simply not bothered to look past the nervous immigrant sitting in his classroom.

But he did bother. And that, as Robert Frost might say, has made all the difference.

The Salsa Chronicles: In Which I Remain Rhythmically Challenged

Wednesday brought the second session of my B Improvers salsa class, and I'm pleased to report marginal progress. Which is to say: I was slightly less catastrophic than the previous week, though that's rather a low bar.

The session started well enough. We revised the basics, practised our timing, worked through the foundational steps that I've now done enough times that my feet occasionally remember them without my brain's frantic intervention. I was feeling rather confident, actually – perhaps dangerously so.

Then we got to the new material.

The final section of the class involved combinations that my brain simply refused to process in real-time. Left foot here, right foot there, turn, step, hold – no wait, don't hold, that was three counts ago – and suddenly I was moving in what I can only describe as interpretive confusion whilst everyone else executed the moves with something approaching grace.

It's humbling, really, learning something this far outside your natural abilities. I can design intricate jewellery in 3D, manipulate complex CAD software, understand the mechanical properties of precious metals. But ask me to remember a salsa sequence whilst actually performing it, and my brain divides by zero.

Still, I refuse to be defeated by choreography. I'll practise at home – probably looking absolutely ridiculous to any neighbours who happen to peer through windows – until my muscle memory overrides my cerebral incompetence. This is how skills are built: through repeated failure, stubborn persistence, and the occasional collision with furniture.

What makes it worthwhile, beyond the satisfaction of eventually mastering something difficult, is the people. Most of my classmates from the previous course enrolled again, which means we're developing that lovely familiarity that comes from shared struggle. We laugh at our collective mistakes, celebrate small victories, and create a space where it's safe to look foolish whilst learning.

Dance, I'm discovering, is rather profound. It's art and therapy combined – a way to release the accumulated stress of daily life, to move your body with intention, to connect with others without words. For someone whose weeks involve detailed technical work, customer service, and the general navigation of adult responsibility, those Wednesday evening hours on the dance floor feel like necessary medicine.

Even if I do keep forgetting which foot goes where.

The Retail Education: Six Weeks at Mappin & Webb

This week marks six weeks since I started at Mappin & Webb, and the learning curve continues to be rather steep – but in the best possible way.

I've learned an enormous amount about retail business operations, about customer interaction, about the specific psychology of luxury sales. How to read body language. When to speak and when to listen. How to provide information without overwhelming. The art of making someone feel valued regardless of whether they purchase anything.

But what strikes me most, six weeks in, is how much the job is changing me beyond the professional sphere. I've noticed it in casual interactions outside of work – the way I engage with strangers, the confidence in my communication, the ability to find connection points with people from wildly different backgrounds.

Working at Mappin & Webb means encountering clients from every conceivable walk of life. Different nationalities, different socioeconomic backgrounds, different stories. Some are celebrating milestones: engagements, anniversaries, retirements. Others are treating themselves after years of hard work. Some know exactly what they want; others need gentle guidance through options they didn't know existed.

Each interaction is, in its own way, a lesson in humanity. And talking with people who've built successful businesses or achieved financial security provides its own form of education. I watch how they carry themselves, listen to how they make decisions, absorb the subtle markers of people who've figured out how to navigate the world effectively.

It motivates me. Not in an envious way, but in an aspirational one. I want to become a self-made success as well – not by copying anyone else's path, but by forging my own with the same determination and intelligence.

The role of Sales Consultant is, I'm discovering, rather more than being an employee. It feels closer to running my own business within someone else's infrastructure. I'm currently writing a proper business plan – mapping out strategies for when the showroom opens, planning how I'll care for my clients, determining how to provide the sort of service that turns transactions into relationships.

This is the sort of work that matters to me. Not just what I do, but who I'm becoming by doing it. The skills I'm building – people reading, communication, service excellence, business thinking – these are transferable, valuable, fundamental.

Six weeks in, and I'm genuinely grateful for this opportunity. It's teaching me things that ten years behind a CAD screen never could.

The Competition Beckons: GCDC 2026

The details for next year's Goldsmiths' Craft & Design Council competition – the GCDC, sometimes called the Oscars of jewellery, which is slightly dramatic but not entirely inaccurate – have been published, and I've started my preparation.

For those unfamiliar, the GCDC is Britain's premier jewellery design and making competition. It's where the industry's best submit their finest work to be judged by people who actually know what they're looking at. Winning a GCDC award is the sort of thing that goes on your CV in bold letters and opens doors that were previously just blank walls.

I've entered seven times. I've won three times. The most recent was 2024, when I had the honour of being among the winners and industry elite at the awards ceremony – the sort of evening where you wear your best outfit and try not to embarrass yourself whilst surrounded by people whose work you've admired for years.

This year – 2026 – I'm determined to be there again.

I'm already reviewing the categories, considering which pieces to design and make, planning the timeline for production. It's early days yet, but competitions like this aren't won in frantic last-minute efforts. They require careful thought, meticulous execution, and the sort of attention to detail that separates "quite good" from "award-worthy."

The challenge is balancing this preparation with everything else: the new job, the ongoing skill development, the salsa classes, the general business of being a functioning adult. But I've learned something about priorities over these past months – since the passport arrived, really – which is that clarity about what matters makes the time management rather easier.

Do I want to be at the GCDC 2026 awards ceremony? Yes. Will that require significant focused effort? Absolutely. Am I willing to do what's necessary? Without question.

Sometimes I think the difference between people who achieve their goals and people who merely wish for them is quite simple: specificity and commitment. Vague aspirations produce vague results. Clear intentions backed by consistent action produce outcomes.

I intend to produce outcomes.

Legacies and Libraries: A Reflection

There's something rather profound about the timing of this week's events. My book – the product of ten years' work – being accepted into permanent collections. Dinner with someone who helped shape my British life from its earliest days. Continued growth in a new career. Preparation for competitions that could further establish my professional reputation.

It feels like pieces of a larger puzzle clicking into place, though I couldn't have predicted the picture they'd form.

When I arrived in Britain eight years ago, I was carrying not just luggage but accumulated weight: the experiences of twenty-eight years in Iran, the determination of someone who'd crossed borders and cultures, the hope that this country might offer what I'd been seeking. I was talented but unproven, skilled but without the credentials to prove it, confident but uncertain whether that confidence was justified.

People like Dauvit saw past the surface uncertainty to the potential beneath. They invested in that potential when they didn't have to. And the Britain I've built – the citizenship, the career, the community, the opportunities – exists partly because of their faith in someone who was still finding his footing.

Now my book will sit in their libraries. Students at their universities will read it. The knowledge I've accumulated through ten years of work, shaped by experiences in both Iran and Britain, will be accessible to people I'll never meet, helping them learn skills I spent years developing.

It's not immortality, exactly, but it's something close: the knowledge that your work outlives your physical presence in a room, continues teaching when you're not there to speak, helps people you'll never encounter solve problems you've already figured out.

That's legacy. And legacy, I'm learning, isn't just about grand gestures or famous names. It's about leaving useful things behind – books that teach, relationships that endure, work that meets standards of excellence, contributions that make the field you worked in slightly better than you found it.

The View from Here

Six weeks into the new job. Eight years into my British life. Nearly 37 years old (which happens in thirteen days, for those keeping track). A book in prestigious libraries. Friendships that have weathered years and distance. Skills improving, even if my salsa footwork remains questionable.

Next week promises more learning at Mappin & Webb, certainly another Wednesday evening of rhythmic confusion on the dance floor, and the continued planning of competition pieces that might, if I execute them properly, be worthy of recognition.

The passport in my drawer says I'm British. The book in Cambridge's library says I know something worth preserving. The cufflinks prototype I designed weeks ago still sits on my bench, reminding me of longer-term goals. And the photograph with Dauvit proves that some of the best things about this country aren't the documents or achievements, but the unlikely connections with people who see you clearly and value you anyway.

From Tehran to Birmingham, from nervous immigrant to published author, from student to competition winner, from CAD designer to sales consultant – the journey continues to surprise me with its unexpected turns and generous gifts.

Time to see what comes next.