Ollie Clack, the UK stonemasonry representative at WorldSkills last month, was one of eight young stars from the world of construction honoured at a reception in City Hall, London, this month (October) to celebrate their achievements at the competition in Calgary, Canada. He was presented with a certificate of participation from former England Rugby hero Matt Dawson, MBE.

Oliver, a 21-year-old stonemason with Chichester specialists CWO, is a stonemasonry student at Weymouth College. At WorldSkills he narrowly missed a medal, but achieved a Medallion For Excellence in fourth place.

He told NSS: “I was hoping to get a medal. I did my best but everyone there was pretty good.”

He was competing against the best young masons from 45 other countries, having won his place in the 26-strong British team against competition from 65 other UK stonemasonry hopefuls. “I was over the moon when I was selected,” he says.

Ollie chose stonemasonry after a spell at art college. “I went to the Connections office and two apprenticeships stood out to me – a mechanic with Rolls Royce and a stonemason with CWO. To be honest, stonemasonry hadn’t crossed my mind before that but I applied to CWO because I really wanted to do it.

“In Calgary, the WorldSkills competition was much bigger than I’d expected – 300,000 spectators went through the site so there were always people watching me as I worked. We were in glass enclosures like Monkey World.”

After the competition the team stayed in Canada sightseeing for another week. “It was really good fun,” says Ollie.

On his return to work at CWO after the competition Ollie settled down to produce some carvings in Hartham Park Bath stone for a project in London.