My name is Steve Garner and I am a self employed Contact Lens Optician. I grew up in Surrey and each time an opportuity came my way I always said yes. By the mid 1990's I found myself starting out in the optics industry, initially as an optical advisor, then making spectacles in on-site labs. Whilst working in an independant practice it was suggested that I should study to become a Dispensing Optician, and that's exactly what I did, qualifying in 2002. A little while later I moved to Somerset and then Wiltshire and I worked for a large multiple for many years where I was offered the opportunity to return to the ABDO college in Godmersham to study further. It was was both hard work and a lot of fun, and in 2006 I qualified as a Contact Lens Optician. It was in 2016 that I moved to Miskin near Cardiff, where I still live today, and I became self employed.
As a CLO I have worked in many practices in South Wales and South West England including Barry, Blackwood, Aberdare, Monmonth, Merthyr Tydfil, Melksham, Frome and Warminster, I'm perfectly happy to travel. Like everyone else, everything was turned upside down in 2020 and returning to work mid-pandemic was quite different with PPE and adapted routines. But adapt we all did and the high levels of hygiene and protection feels perfectly normal now.
I fit spherical, toric and multifocal lenses in both soft and RGP materials and I enjoy the challenges of the more complex fits. I am happy to fit whichever lenses you favour in your practice.
The area I cover includes South Wales and parts of South West England.
In 2019 my girlfriend and I set out to learn to silversmith. Attending courses and setting up a studio at home, we established our jewellery business just as the pandemic hit. Despite not being able to attend any craft fairs yet we have seen decent growth with sales of both finished pieces in sterling silver, and cabochons that we sell on to other jewellers, created with Surfite (the resin waste product from surfboard production) and Fordite (layers and layers of dried paint that builds up in car paintshops). Historically both materials were sent to landfill. It fits in with our ethic of reusing and recycling which extends to all of our packaging too.
During the first lockdown in 2020 I filled some of my time by becoming a community resilience volunteer for the council. While others were asked to re-establish contact with the vulnerable, collecting prescriptions or shopping for others in our community, I was lucky enough to be charged with dog walking for the shielding which I found to be very rewarding. By June we gave a home to a puppy from an accidental litter on a working farm. We named her Dakota and is our first dog, a real mix of collie, Welsh sheepdog and perhaps whippet. Then in April 2021 she was joined by a tricoloured collie called Newton, or Sir Isaac Newton to give him his full name.
