My journeyman years

Three and a half years travelling and not allowed closer than 31 miles to home. No mobile. Everything he owned and needed with him. David Switalla travelled to many places, met many good people and worked in countless companies. Then he returned home. These are the traditional German journeyman years.

In medieval times, craftspeople had to go on the journey once they had finished their apprenticeship in order to become a Master of their craft. In his years as a journeyman, David learned a lot: new skills in masonry and other heritage crafts; a lot about cities, towns and places he’d never been before; and, most of all, life skills.

Join David and learn more about the tradition of the German journeyman years. Discover how it works these days and how it worked in the past. Find out how you survive without a mobile phone for at least three years and a day…

David Switalla was born in Viersen, Germany and worked as an apprentice stone mason in Neu-Ulm, Germany from 2005 to 2008. In September 2009 he embarked on his travels as a journeyman, working in Switzerland and Germany, and becoming a Mastermason and a state certified technical engineer for stone.

Since 2016, David has been based at the workshop of Matthias Garn in York, the firm carrying out the painstaking restoration of the nave of St Mary’s Church. He is the foreman of this major conservation project and has become a familiar face in Beverley.

Reserve your free place at the talk here.