A son of a famous Penryn blacksmith has got in touch with the Falmouth Packet to share his story.

Mike Jordan, chairman of Cornish Stairways International, has transformed a local business into an international design company.

Originally located on Commercial Road in Penryn, Davey and Jordan used to be a well-established forge, working on a number of high-profile projects such as St Paul’s Cathedral, Truro Cathedral and Royal Ascot.

Mike Jordan is now working in the Middle East; his portfolio includes work for Prince Sulman of Saudi Arabia, the ruling family of Kuwait and the Buckingham Palace.

Mike told the Packet: "There isn’t a day when I wouldn't think of my dad. As a young boy I used to watch him working at the forge 'Davey and Jordan'. He was creating master pieces for his many London-based clients. He was a master of his profession. Now and then he had to leave the glowing heat of the forge to answer the odd phone call.

"If there was a need by his clients to make an alteration to his proposed drawings, he would hand-draw a revision on a sheet of white paper, ‘fax’ it to his client and await their approval before proceeding. It often took up to a week before he received a reply. God forsake if he had to post such a drawing and wait.

"What would my father think of me now? I doubt he could even get his head around where I have taken his 20th century hand crafted blacksmith business. Where’s your ‘fax’ he would say, and what is that little black thing you are carrying in your hand and talking into?

"I seem to have catapulted his traditional 200-year-old family business into the 21st century. I can only hope he would be proud.

"I spent almost 25 years working in the Middle East, building exotic stairways for the royal family and many other commissions for the world's rich and famous. I am still going from strength to strength.

"He would be even more baffled if he saw where I am today. I'm currently sitting in a design office in Cape Town, communicating with another team in Saudi Arabia on some royal apartments, having another group working on a feature stairway as a centre piece of His Highness Museum of the Future in Dubai and working with a sculptor in Marrakesh on a feature stairway for a palace in Morocco. As they say ‘you are only a click away’ from anyone in the world.

"I can have a team in any location in the world laser surveying the site, instantaneously downloading details through the cloud and uploading them straight into our computer-aided design system. I can have a conversation with the craftsmen in the workshop or on site for any complicated alterations to the structure without me even leaving the design chair.

"With all this modern technology at my finger tips, a day doesn’t go by when I am not along with my brothers, so proud of what my father had achieved just with his bare hands. He did not have sophisticated equipment we have at our disposal today. We are not the men my father was in his day. We loved you dad, you will always be in our thoughts!"