Dr Rebecca Struthers, a modern-day polymath

There's no stopping this multi-talented watchmaker

- MARK MCARTHUR-CHRISTIE

IMAGINE. YOU'RE THE first watchmaker in the UK to earn a PhD in Horology. You've restored countless watches, often making each tiny, individual part by hand on a lathe you've rebuilt yourself in a business you started from scratch. You've just written a best-selling book that Radio 4 has snapped up and serialised as Book of the Week. And, while you were at it, you've summitted the ultimate watchmaking Everest, designing and building your own in-house movement. Champagne, medals and justified self-satisfaction all-round, you'd think.

Not if you're Dr Rebecca Struthers. 'I still have massive impostor syndrome. I think I'm going to get rumbled any day now.' Struthers is a marked contrast to most in an industry where a big brand changing the font on a dial usually results in fanfares and a shower of glitter.

Horology is fortunate to have snagged her interest. She'd intended to be a pathologist until a careers adviser 'implied that medicine was not really for kids from my working-class background', so she dropped out of school at 17 and did a jewellery and silversmithing course.