Charity to give away festive daisy charm crafted by apprentice who swapped oily cars for classic jewellery

A teenager who traded a career in fixing cars for a brighter future making and mending gleaming jewellery has charmed her employer and a leading charity with a special Christmas creation.

Savannah Beal has hand-crafted a silver daisy as a gift for Karen Guest, who hired her as an apprentice in the family firm of Guest & Philips. Karen has donated the piece to the Daisy Appeal, which is now giving it away free of charge on Facebook to the most deserving recipient.

The charity is urging people to visit the Daisy Appeal Facebook page over the Christmas period to nominate the person who they think should receive Savannah’s daisy, and the aim is to present the prize before New Year.

Karen, who is a trustee of the Daisy Appeal, said: “Savannah’s daisy is so pretty and it was very heart-warming to receive it. I was shocked in a good way. It’s beautiful and she’s done a really good job. It’s very significant to me and it means a lot because it’s so very thoughtful.”

Savannah, who is 18, comes from a farming family and began a mechanical engineering apprenticeship with a vehicle recovery business near her home in Woodmansey after leaving school.

She said: “There was a lot of work with the emergency services and I thought of becoming a fire fighter. I was there for just under a year and it was really interesting work but in other ways it just didn’t click.”

The introduction to Guest & Philips came from Savannah’s mum, Amanda, who has worked there for 25 years. Now in her second year as a jewellery manufacturing and design apprentice, Savannah works at the firm’s main premises in Saturday Market, Beverley, and spends two days every fortnight at the British Academy of Jewellery in Hatton Garden, alongside trainees from such big names as Tiffany and Rebus.

Savannah led the way on making the daisy, with help from workshop manager Martin Cardell and jeweller Iain Beresford, who each have about 40 years’ experience in the trade.

She said: “I wanted to make it because Karen does so much work for the Daisy Appeal. I started with a flat plate of silver and cut the shape out. It has a natural citrine stone set in it. I had quite a lot of help from Martin and Iain and it took us over the course of a few weeks, fitting it in with our repair work.

“It is never the same here from one day to another. When you are given a job to do and you hand it back to the customer, it’s all polished and they’re happy it’s really satisfying. We deal with nice projects all the time. It’s not like oily cars!”

Karen said: “Savannah is doing really well. She fits in with all of us and there are occasions when she works on the shop floor, which is good because when she’s trying to explain to people about ring-sizing and soldering she has the knowledge and the experience to advise the customer.

“The daisy is delightful and will make a fantastic New Year gift for somebody so I hope people respond and help us to raise awareness of the Daisy Appeal.”

The Daisy Appeal has a target of £8.2-million to complete a radiochemistry and cyclotron unit which will produce radioactive tracers at Castle Hill Hospital to improve accuracy and detection rates for cancer, heart disease and dementia in Hull, East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire.

The new facility will provide the opportunity for patients to receive more personalised care leading to earlier diagnosis and giving them better treatment and quality of life.

Once the facility is fully functional patients from a wider geographical area will have access to its services. The charity aims to play a leading role in clinically relevant PET-CT research over the next two decades and to show that the technology can be brought to the individual patient, quickly and effectively.

Claire Levy, Fundraiser for the Daisy Appeal, said: “Everyone at the Daisy Appeal is so grateful to Savannah for coming up with such a lovely idea and to Karen for offering the daisy charm to support the campaign.

“We’re not asking for any money for it. We just want people to contact us through the Daisy Appeal Facebook page, nominate who they think should receive the charm and tell us why. We hope to receive some uplifting, inspirational stories and spread the word about the Daisy Appeal. We want to give the daisy away before New Year so please respond by 5pm on Friday 27th December.”