Diary of a Teapot Collector

Hi there
I know it’s late as usual.
We didn’t make it to Tony Carters because we still hadn’t any mains electricity and the roofer and electricians were in and out all every day.
This had a real bad effect on Gary Seymour as well because he didn’t have his kiln so couldn’t make any pots. At last, on the 16th January we got mains electricity reconnected.
After Xmas we had finished getting the house straight and the cleaning company come in to help cleaning the teapots. I had nightmares trying to not to let them touch any of my special pots things that I thought I couldn’t replace very easily.
I ended up washing a lot myself.

I’ve been musing lately about why teapots are so comforting. Visually I love the fat round ones, like the quintessential Brown Betties. They are remind me of hugging my short round American Grandmother, Mima; as well as the short wide body of my Scottish Nana. It’s apparent as time goes by, who I inherited my body shape from! I miss my Mima so much. She was extraordinarily affectionate, gave me such freedom, and spoiled me rotten. Her presence was a wonderful break from my stern and strict British Mum. Nana didn’t like to cuddle nor did my Mum, unless it was a wee baby. Oops, I’m getting sidetracked, but this is relevant to my rambling today.

Happy New Year Teapotty Folks,

I’ve now passed the first month anniversary of living in England. I am ensconced in Faversham, and what a lovely wee village. It’s like living in a Dickens’s novel walking by Edwardian architecture everyday. It ranges from the lovely heavy beamed stucco buildings to gorgeous cobble stone cottages. Sorry if I am repeating myself but it is charming.

I’ve been prowling every charity shop in town for teapots. Which has motivated me to analyze and muse about why some pots sit for months on the shelves. Many are badly damaged, just plain ugly or made of that dreadful white paste stuff that chips when you just look at it. It’s so sad to see these lonely pots gathering dust.

Happy Christmas!

Well the Yank has landed in Great Britain. I arrived on Dec. 4th after 20 hours in the air. Speaking of ‘Yanks’, this term for Americans, especially as a Southern gal, always gets my attention. It always smacks of the ‘Yankees’ from the Civil War! I know it was the slang for all GI’s during WW2.

I’m temporarily settled in Faversham, Kent after a stay with my elderly Aunt and Uncle in Birchington, Kent. The old saying about relatives and fish is correct. Love ‘em to bits, but can’t live with them. However, I have 25 teapots to retrieve from their shed that I bought on Ebay last April through June. I went a bit ‘teapotty’!

Hello Tea Pot Lovers! This is my first article for the Cardew website. I thought I’d introduce myself, and how my Tea Pot mania began.

I’m the daughter of a WW2 British War Bride. She hailed from London, but my Tennessee GI Daddy met Mom in Dorset. His unit was headed south. Momma was a Land Girl, and her hostel was invited to a dance that the GI’s Company was hosting. So there you are! I arrived in 1951.

July 2005 - ‘T-6′ Six teapot designers gather at the Cardew Collectors Day

On the Friday night some of the collectors managed to make it to the barbeque. Paul did a lovely job as chef. Everyone had a good time at the T6 open day. Paul gave the collectors a vote on what colour the final ‘Fairy Infusion’ was going to be.

If you were lucky enough to have a tour of the Design Studio, you got a chance to see the new range of ‘Wallace and Gromit’ items and the newly revamped Nat West pig family that Paul has designed for ‘Enesco’.

April 2005

Hi everyone

I’m glad to see that Cardewclub.com is now up and running.

I am getting the next lot of pictures ready for them to enter and when I get a bit of time, I will be checking to see if they have been listed correctly.

I went to the NEC Spring Fair to check out the new designs for this year.

Tony Carter had 11 ‘new’ designs but I am sorry to say that 9 of them were re-issues of old designs. There were only two new designs - a sewing machine and a one-cup golf bag.