This is one which I borrowed from the library. I’ve always admired Emma Bridgewater’s pottery and it was only after reading this book that I realised that it’s because she based her designs on Scottish pottery, which I used to collect. In fact Kirkcaldy in Fife got a specific mention as it was at one time a centre for pottery making. I prefer her earlier spongeware which is more similar to the old Scottish designs.

Anyway, this book is an autobiography, telling how she set up her pottery business. There are lots of stories about her family, parents, children, grannies, animals and partners. Each chapter has a favourite recipe of hers at the end of it.

It’s eye candy as there are lots of lovely photos of patchwork quilts, pottery and china, gardens, flowers, behind the scenes in pottery factories and food. In fact at one point I thought to myself, this woman Emma Bridgewater sounds so much like me with similar collections of ‘stuff’. I’m sure she even mentioned that she reads Angela Thirkell and she buys old children’s books too. However, I didn’t ever have a granny with a house in London’s Cheyne Walk – and a country estate in Scotland. I knew I was missing something in life!

One thing which does impress me though is that despite the fact that she comes from a large fractured family with divorced parents who remarried and had more children, meaning she has seven siblings – half siblings and step siblings as well as full siblings, she seems to have managed to stay close to them all and be on very good terms with them. Something of a miracle I think.

If you don’t know Bridgewater pottery you can see some images here.