Rough Clay

by Chrissie Loveday

  The most unexpected feature of his new life was the loneliness. Always before he had worked with large groups of people and he missed the companionship. He was also rather inclined to spend rather too long dreaming or planning, as he euphemistically called it. He quickly realised that although he could draw exactly what he wanted the finished object to look like, he was not sufficiently skilled at the three dimensional modelling. But there was no problem with that. Among the closed community of pottery workers, he soon found people who had all the necessary skills. Many of them worked in their own homes as well as in factories and it was easy to find several excellent workers. He bought another second hand smaller kiln for firing more of the decorated ware and this saved many hours and breakages, previously spent when transporting his work to the kilns at Sansom’s. The closer it was to being finished, the more costly the breakages. It wasn’t long before he was ready to take on one more worker. He decided to engage a caster, a middle aged lady who was very much cheaper to employ than a man. After all, he was still planning to be a very hands-on boss at this stage. It also meant that he was himself working harder to complete the jobs. His paperwork was also beginning to build up. Invoices needing paying were totally mixed up with receipts and even the odd cheque for goods received were buried in the growing pile. Mrs Cade, his caster, sometimes watched as he worked. He was totally absorbed in his pleasure at seeing the intricate china pieces turning from the grey clay into objects of delicacy and beauty. All the same, she was a practical soul and could see at once where he needed help.

  ‘My sister-in-law does some book-keeping for some of the little firms. I’m sure if I had a word, she’d soon get you sorted. A couple of hours a week would do it. At this stage, anyhow. Shall I have a word?’

  ‘Book-keeper? I don’t really think I need one at this stage. I was always good at sums at school.’

  ‘Oh I’m sure you were but it’s more than just doing a few sums, isn’t it? I’ve watched you over the last couple of weeks. You hate having to do anything that keeps you away from the pots. I noticed you were doing a design on the back of the clay invoice yesterday. Fag packets. Bills. Receipts. You don’t care what it is, once you get your hands on a pencil, do you? Now, I’m going to make us a cuppa and then we’ll have a look and see if our Marjorie can help out a bit. She doesn’t charge much. A few bob. Be well worth it.’

  Archie stared in surprise at the little woman. She usually said very little and this speech was one of her longest ever. She did have a point. The thought of doing his books was always pushed to one side. He always persuaded himself he would tackle it later, at the end of the week. There were too many other things, more interesting things to do.

  ‘All right Mrs Cade. Get your Marjorie to call in one evening, after we finish. You’re probably right. I do need someone to do the books. I was going to take them home but it doesn’t seem the best plan. Dora likes me to spend what bit of time there is, with her and the little ’un.’

  He told Dora of his growing empire. She looked troubled but she said nothing. She hoped he wasn’t trying to run before he could walk. She did offer to look at the books herself but he smiled gently and said that he wouldn’t want to trouble her with such tasks. Besides, she certainly wasn’t much good at sums, however efficient a housekeeper she was. So far, the expenditure was still less than the income and the business was growing all the time. Each new line he tried was quickly snapped up. There were already a dozen different pieces he was selling regularly. Brooches were going well and some miniature jugs, the latest addition, also seemed popular. Tiny sprays of hand-painted flowers decorated the sides, complemented by gilded handles and tops. His orders for Christmas were already coming in very well and it was still only September.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be concentrating on just making one or two different things?’ Dora asked. ‘You just get one line going and you’re already working on something else.’

  ‘That’s the secret. Keep new stuff coming out. If I only have one or two lines, we all get fed up with them and then the buyers think they’ve seen it all before. We have to keep expanding the range. I want to try some other shapes of vases, the little miniatures, you know. Then I plan to try a proper, large figurine. They’re really complicated to make you know. Every little part has to be made so it will come out of the mould and then they’re stuck together with slip when they’re being fettled.’

  ‘You’ve lost me, Archie. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  Archie picked up the precious Royal Doulton figurine they’d been given as a wedding present and began to show her how it would have been made. If there was any gap on the model, such as a bent elbow or hand, that had to be made in a separate mould and stuck on afterwards. Any joins were smoothed out with the sponge and nobody would ever know it wasn’t all made as one piece.

  ‘It’s much more complicated than you’d think,’ she said. ‘Are you sure it’s what you want to do?’

  ‘I think it’s a good idea. And I can help with that fettle-thinging,’ Carole announced. ‘Like I did when I came to see the Carole lady being made.’

  ‘I’d certainly be happier if I knew you were being kept on the straight and narrow,’ laughed Dora. ‘And you will no doubt be taking on more people as you expand the lines.’

  ‘The flower maker is fine working as outworker. Painting’s more difficult because of carrying it. I certainly need a couple more part-timers. One of the packers is going to come over after he finishes at Sansom’s, just for a couple of hours. I can’t tell you what it means to me, love. Just giving work to people means such a lot.’

  Dora was somewhat upset when a refrigerator arrived one day. She had no idea it was coming and was waiting with angry words when Archie came home. He looked so pleased with himself that she bit back her words and settled for a mild chastising.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I looked such a fool. There wasn’t even a space cleared to put it. I had to get the men to help me move stuff in the old air-raid shelter to make room for it. I told them to take it away but they said they wouldn’t.’

  ‘It was a surprise. Besides, I knew you’d say no if I told you it was coming, so I thought I’d just get it. And we’re having a phone put in next week. We need it for work.’

  ‘Come on. Why do we need to have it at home if it’s for work?’

  ‘So I can take orders and phone to tell you when I’m coming home. You always complain you don’t know how late I shall be. Besides, it’ll be nice for you to phone grocery orders through. To the butcher and the shop. Save you time. And now you’ve got the fridge, you won’t need to go shopping so often.’

  ‘You’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you?’ She gave him a hug and they stood together, for several minutes. It was all a part of getting the things he wanted in life, she knew. Whatever fears she had about falling into debt, she knew this was his way of proving he was worth something. It would have been wrong to spoil his pleasure.

  ‘Car, telephone, refrigerator. What’s next? You’ll be wanting one of these television things I suppose.’

  ‘Oh no. That will have to wait a bit. I don’t think there are enough programmes for us to watch yet. One day soon, maybe.’

  ‘So, you’ll just have to make do with going to the pictures,’ Carole said happily.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Life was moving in different ways as many more restrictions of the war years were coming to an end. The lives of the residents on the estate needed something more and as people had a little more money, various recreational groups were forming.

  Archie was helping put together a local cricket team and one evening a week, several of the old home guard group met at the centre to discuss tactics. With the aid of a small grant from the council and a lot of hard work, a local farmer was persuaded to allow them to use a field, a little way out of the village and they raised funds to build a proper pavilion. The team proudly joined a league and began to make a small impact. It was a good humoured group and
they all became firm friends. Archie was more than proud when he was asked to captain the team and took his duties very seriously. Carole earned pocket money by oiling the cricket bat with linseed oil and putting whitening on her dad’s boots. Dora was roped in to making teas and gained a new circle of friends.

  By 1949, the order books at the factory were already full. Archie, with Dora’s backing, made the big decision to move to a larger factory. There were already several workers crammed into the original room and the need for their own large kiln to fire the biscuit and glost stages was becoming desperate.

  ‘I need to expand properly, very soon,’ Archie had said somewhat tentatively one evening. ‘For a start, I really need my own kiln for biscuit firing. I can’t keep trailing everything over to the other factory and the timing’s never right. And if I get a big kiln, I shall need a bigger space to put it in.’

  Dora looked even more concerned.

  ‘And so where is this new place to be?’

  ‘There’s a building in Fenton. King Street. Once upon a time it was two houses. Been knocked together. I can’t move too far or the girls won’t be able to travel with me. But I reckon this one will be ideal. On the bus route and everything. I don’t think I can afford to turn it down.’

  ‘Funny. I somehow guessed there would be a place you just couldn’t turn down.’

  ‘This is it, Dora. I have to have a go. If I don’t I’ll always think I’ve missed my chances. I know I can make it work.’

  For the next weeks, he was busy moving equipment to the new factory, though Dora felt factory was a slightly grandiose name to give the little building. It had been used for manufacturing earthenware, heavy, crude pieces that had helped the war effort supplying plates and cups for government orders. It had lain empty once the war was over, when the company had followed the way of so many of the smaller companies and was unable to continue. Post-war shortages of clay and coal to fire the ovens had been disaster to many of them and the lack of the necessary chemicals for painting meant that the white or cream ware had continued on the home market.

  Now, there was a new optimism everywhere. This was the heart of the pottery industry and once things began to pick up, it was going to be a boom time for them all. The King Street premises were ready for the move. A sign was painted to hang across the front of the building. Archie Barnett, Fine Bone China. It was written in the same flowing script that Archie had practised for so long. The factory soon filled with workers and carpenters began to put up partitions to make a small showroom at the front of the building. Beside this, Archie had a small office, tucked into a cubby-hole beneath the stairs. He had no intention of spending much time in any office, so it was minimal. He had a secretary who came one morning and the book-keeper for one afternoon. The rest of the time, Archie stuffed the post into cardboard boxes and answered the phone when he had to. The typewriter was balanced on a filing cabinet, to one side of his desk. Dora secretly worried about his lack of office organisation but knew it was beyond her abilities to help in any way. All his workers loved him and it seemed, would do anything for him, staying late and happily working flat out when necessary. He was always an idealist and a dreamer. He continued to use any paper, cardboard, anything to draw out his ideas and create shapes. Sales reps called with new products and equipment for the manufacturers and he was always ready to try something different. There were new lithographs, transfers to decorate china, many of them with rich gold patterns integrated into the designs. He immediately bought them, knowing he could make opulent looking pieces with addition of gold rims. It made them expensive, but the market, especially the growing export market, would lap them up, he felt certain.

  Each time there was a new line, he took home a sample for Dora. Soon, the collection was too big for the china cabinet and they put up extra shelves in the lounge. This room was only used for high days and holidays but this meant less cleaning and the china was safer. Friends began to call round, especially after the cricket matches, when there were often impromptu parties. Archie’s reputation was growing. People saw his work and wanted to buy pieces for presents. It was especially precious, when they knew the manufacturer personally. There was a constant stream of things brought home from work and often, when someone admired a particular piece, he would hand over one of Dora’s collection, promising to replace it when the next batch came out. Often, she had to fight very hard for the replacement and some never arrived.

  Once established in his new factory, the product range grew and the orders were even larger. Many pieces were sent abroad for the growing export market and they all felt excited to think of Archie Barnett China finding its way into homes in America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and many more countries. Some weeks, more goods were sold overseas than to the home market.

  ‘Just think. There are people sitting in their homes all over the world looking at a piece of my china every day. I can’t imagine what some of these places are like. And to think, the china came out of our little factory in the middle of Fenton.’ Dora smiled at his words and kept her fingers crossed that it continued. Archie always enthused about the various pieces he was designing. One day he came home looking particularly excited.

  ‘We’ve got a new idea. You’re going to be the model for one of our next figures,’ he told his daughter. ‘We are going to make a set of characters from Alice in Wonderland and you are going to be Alice. Well, what do you think?’

  ‘What will I have to do?’ she asked.

  ‘Just sit very still for awhile while the model is made. You’ll be sitting on a mushroom when we make the figure properly.’

  Carole chuckled and said they’d never find a mushroom big enough or strong enough. All the same, she found her copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and read it again with extra interest. She could see why they had the idea of using a mushroom but still felt puzzled as to how it would be done. In the event, she had to sit on the edge of a desk for a long time, her bare feet swinging. Mrs Jacobs, the model maker, had to keep asking her to sit still. Carole wanted to have her hair loose for the modelling, and had even insisted on buying a new blue ribbon to make a headband. Alice always had a headband and long hair. However, the sculptress preferred to have her looking more contemporary and asked the child to keep her hair in pigtails.

  ‘Bit strange, isn’t it?’ Carole asked her mother when she got home.

  ‘She’s a very clever lady. She knows what she’s doing. Anyhow, it makes Dad’s model a bit different, doesn’t it?’

  Carole was bursting with excitement to see herself but it took a very long time before there was anything to see. Once the first clay model was finished, there was the long process of making the moulds. The original model was carefully cut apart to make the shapes that would be needed for the mould and each of the legs and arms were made separately. She was cross to think that she would never see the actual sculpture as it had already been cut apart to make the moulds. Finally they were all ready and the first pieces cast. Archie had given in to her badgering and allowed her to come and watch the process. She stared at the face of the model as it came out of the mould and asked if it really looked like her. She was assured that it did and she pulled a face.

  ‘It’s a bit weird. I only see myself in the mirror or on a photograph so I don’t know what I look like all round me. I s’pect it’ll be all right. OK. Thanks, Daddy.’

  There were five characters in the set. Carole fell in love with them all as soon as she saw them in the various stages. She was promised the whole set for Christmas and though she was pleased, she hoped that was not all she was to get. After all, they always took home the pieces of china when they were made. When she opened the box on Christmas morning, she sat staring at them and for once, really began to appreciate the beautiful creations her father had made. She had grown up taking Archie’s beautiful creations totally for granted. To the child it was simply what her father did, just as her best friend’s Dad made shoes at the nearby Lotus factory. But now, as she
handled the delicate pieces, she looked at the fine details, realising that she was holding something very special. The March Hare was sitting with his long legs ungainly, and untidily folded together. He was cheerfully spreading butter on his pocket watch. The White Rabbit was standing elegantly by a tree stump, while the Mad Hatter wore his top hat proudly with the 10/6d label clearly showing. The Caterpillar was wonderful. Carole was not keen on real caterpillars, but this one sported a fez and had a lovely smile, as he held his arms out sideways with a devil may care expression. His hookah rested beside him and he was so beautifully shaped she could almost see his many pairs of legs moving. As she held Alice in her hand, she fell silent. In all honesty, she wasn’t sure she looked much like this delicate little model, bare legs swinging over the edge of her mushroom. She was so perfect. The whole model stood on a greenish-brown base, painted to look like earth. She fingered the shapes for a long time, thinking what a clever father she had.