Chris Sheehan celebrates 60-year career after surviving a heart attack

He’s 76 years old and is recovering from a heart attack, but this Adelaide Hills jeweller says he’s not planning on downing the tools of his 60-year trade anytime soon.

For six decades, Adelaide Hills jeweller Chris Sheehan has been crafting treasures the “old-school” way, insistent it’ll take more than a heart attack for him to down his tools.

The 76-year-old who started his career as an apprentice at the old Wendts Jewellers in Rundle St lists royalty and flamboyant entertainer Liberace among those he has created bespoke pieces for.

When Mr Sheehan – the face behind Stirling Jewellers for the past 36 years – suffered a heart attack almost three years ago, it was his workshop and craft that proved his ideal medicine.

“I decided the best form of recovery was to get out of bed and keep working,” he said.

“I get a lot of satisfaction from my work; sitting down for eight hours to make a ring that will make a customer happy is rewarding.

Stirling jeweller Chris Sheehan, 76, is celebrating 60 years in the jewellery business. Picture: Dean Martin

“Besides, hardly a day goes by that someone doesn’t come in and say, ‘you can’t retire, where are we going to go?’.”

Proudly born and bred in Echunga, the Port Adelaide-supporting father and grandfather says he fell into jewellery-making by chance, initially wanting to pursue a career in geology.

“But my mother told me I would have to go to university to do that and I hated school,” he said.

“We saw an advertisement for an apprentice jeweller and she (Mum) said to me, ‘that will be working with precious stones – ruby and sapphires and all that sort of thing – which you are interested in’.

“So we came to town and there was a big line-up, but I got the job – and started in January 1965, the day before Australia Day.”

To this day he is not sure whether it was how he presented himself or the fact he was a country boy who turned up to the interview with his mother that secured him the gig ahead of the dozens of others lined up for it.

He has made pieces for US singer and pianist Liberace as well as royalty. For the past 36 years he has run the Sitrling Jewellers. Picture: Dean Martin

Mr Sheehan had not long finished his five-year apprenticeship when he was promoted to foreman, tasked with both mentoring young new apprentices and managing older, more experienced colleagues as well.

When the jewellery workshop was closed, he bought it and its instruments, some dating back more than 150 years, but the building was eventually demolished and he set up his shop in Stirling.

The workbench he uses today is the very same one he started on. Mr Sheehan says among his favourite jobs is crafting the Bradman and Rolton medals for the SA Cricket Association’s male and female players of the season.

For 40 years he also supplied trophies for the Oakbank Easter Carnival, featuring “horses jumping over a fallen log” – a gig he dearly misses now the event is canned.

Mr Sheehan regrets that many of the old techniques associated with handmade jewellery are being lost.

“It is now all casting and CAD design and mass produced for discounters … there are very few one-offs and small manufacturing jewellers,” he said. He says something he is seeing more of is family heirlooms and antiques being brought in to be remodelled as rings and other jewellery by younger generations.

“They might use the gold or diamonds in a design of their own; it is a bit of a saving for them financially, but also has sentimental significance,” Mr Sheehan said.

Originally published as Chris Sheehan celebrates 60-year career after surviving a heart attack