Diary Notes from England: Potter’s Paradise

I am just mildly excited. After watching the BBC2’s  series, The Great Pottery Throw-Down, I realise I can visit Middleport Pottery in Stoke-on-Trent, when I’m on my research trip to the UK.

Actually mildly excited is an understatement: the visit is not negotiable.

Maybe it’s not a must-see in most people’s UK travel itinerary, but for a ceramic artist, Stoke-on-Trent is the home of pottery in the UK and Middleport Pottery is the film location of the television series. It is my Ramsay Street. My Neighbours set. (The English are obsessed with Neighbours, not sure why…)

The series, judged by famous English potters Kate Malone and Keith Brymer-Jones, showcases 10 amateur potters who slug it out in all aspects of ceramic craft. I’m in awe. Just throwing in public would send me into an absolute melt-down; I’m absolutely in the baby stages and not confident. My own pottery is either slab-formed or slip cast. For a start, I would fail miserably in the pressure-cooker situation of throwing a masterpiece in front of master potters, let alone millions of telly critics.

But visiting the pottery where it all happens? Well that’s a different thing. I want to feel the atmosphere, feel the ghosts.

Visiting there will feed a covert fantasy of mine; not just for the love of pottery and its process, but the history of England’s industrial revolution.