Where the Cups Come From

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 472, 9 July 1948, Page 13

Where the Cups Come From

S I happen to be a lover of pottery I found the BBC feature "Window on Britain: The Potteries," especially interesting. But surely no listener could fail to appreciate, if not the pottery itself, the description of its making and firing, of the locality in which the worldfamous potteries are situated, of the transport of raw materials and finished product. Housewives would feel a sympathy with theenarrator who saw millions of cups in the making and yet, (continued on riext page)

RADIO VIEWSREEL

(continued from previous page) on account of shortages, had still to drink out of a cracked one. Points such as this, rather than the explanations of machinery and processes, gave the programme its homely appeal. While the narrator toured the "five towns," he was offered innumerable cups of tea, but out of plain china. "We're too much a part of the exportdrive to be allowed decoration on goods for home consumption!" He learned of the peculiarities of the export tradesome countries like their crockery patterned all over, some like it plain; some

prefer the gravy-boat attached to its saucer, instead of made as a separate piece; some use a lidded box instead of our familiar basin for the sugar, and so on. It was all given in comfortable slow dialect voices, neither too technical nor too brief, and the listener felt that he was learning a lot more about pottery by listening-including (try it) the simple hint on how to tell china from earthenware by holding it up to see whether it lets the light through.