[1] At the age of just thirteen Stratton was apprenticed to Eric Gill, a friend of his father in Ditchling, cycling the twenty five miles from home on a Monday and returning on a Friday.

In 1931 he began establishing himself as a teacher and to the outbreak of the Second World War he taught stone carving and lettering at Westminster School of Art.

Stratton always maintained a strong attachment to rural Sussex and he opened a studio next to his house at White Turret Cottage in Barns Green from where he worked for the next thirty years until his death in 1985.

[1] His skills as a craftsman allowed Stratton to become a versatile artist adept at working on a monumental scale to producing delicate ornaments in a variety of media and even precise contemporary pieces of jewellery.

An example of this period of his work is the sculpture he was commissioned to provide for St Peter's Church of England School in Henfield, West Sussex.