IAN Cox isn't a man to keep his feet on the ground he's been a roofer since he was 18, just as his father was before him.

He's worked on buildings as high as the 14-storey Broadgate complex, near Liverpool Street Station, in London, and as huge as the mighty St David's Hall, in Cardiff, which ate up 300 tons of lead.

On the other hand, no job is too small.

"When I was working at a house in Ilfracombe, I was asked to fit a copper cat flap," he says.

Roofs, it seems, also come in a variety of shapes, as well as sizes.

Ian (49) worked on the recording studio of rock legend Peter Gabriel, which, he says, ended up resembling a space ship.

Another was shaped like an aeroplane wing, and one even looked like a grand piano.

Modern buildings still need the services of a traditional metal roofer, like Ian, who works mostly with copper, zinc and stainless steel.

The day we meet, he is midway through a job, laying a new copper roof on an office building, that will take him around a week and half to complete and use up one-and-a-half tons of copper.

But even traditional roofers are not averse to innovation and, for this job, Ian is trying out a brand new seaming machine.

Using an action not dissimilar to ironing a shirt, it harnesses the copper firmly into position.

Meanwhile, Ian's colleague, Sean Norman, uses the more old-fashioned and labour-intensive approach of hammering the seams into place manually.

Ian runs his own company, Ian Cox Roofing Ltd, and places safety high on the agenda of any job he agrees to undertake.

Before taking on a job, he assesses its potential risks so that he and his staff do not hurt themselves.

Safety hard hats and steel-capped trainers are mandatory uniform. A bosun's chair, scaffolding and harnesses attached to an anchor, called fall arrest blocks, also help to keep roofers safe.

These are used to hook workmen back onto the building, should they fall.

Ian's work takes him far and wide as far north as the Shetland Isles and as far south as Jersey, and most places in between.

In fact, most of his working week is spent away from his home in Wool, in Dorset.

Ian says the best thing about his job is the fact that each roof is a different creation and will endure.

He says: "The metals I work with have a lifespan lasting centuries."

Not every customer is satisfied, however.

One of Ian's strangest moments came when a customer complained that a lead roof he had fitted had blown off.

Further investigation revealed that the roof had not so much blown off, as walked'.

Ultimately, it turned out that it had actually been stolen.

For more information about Ian Cox Roofing Ltd or to employ Ian's services, call 01929 405093 or visit the link below.