The 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle that I was given by a friend from the North-east of England was quite difficult, but not impossible, and we completed it within four or five days. Well there wasn’t much else that we could do over the very quiet and completely socially responsible (just the two of us) Christmas period. There was of course the usual scrabbling around on the carpet looking for the final piece, luckily we found it.

Everything in the pictorial collage is a part of the company’s history – teapots, tea caddies, vases, dishes, money boxes and commemorative royal mugs. It was the local Maling pottery based in Newcastle that made the original Ringtons wares, but over the years others have manufactured them, including Wade, Wedgewood and Royal Stafford. I presume there are Ringtons collectors around, but the only item we have commemorates the 1929 North-East Coast Industries Exhibition. A similar one features in the jigsaw, the hexagonal blue and white tea caddie on the right edge of the second row.