A Potteries Idyll

This will be quite brief for a Sharpie article (I can almost hear the collective sighs of relief) but it acts as a bit of a paean to The Potteries, and one not only from my own perspective.

Many of you will know that Mr S and I spent a couple of years living in The Potteries, or just south of the boundary which normally defines this historic area. Though it didn’t quite work out to be our settled home, so like overwintering birds we have since migrated southwards, there was a great deal about the area we loved.

It is home to The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery  which has a gallery dedicated to one of the largest collections of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork ever to be found, to date, The Staffordshire Hoard, which surpasses the extraordinary finds at Sutton Hoo.

Home too, to one of the finest greasy spoon cafés we have ever graced, Harley’s Café in Hanley. Friendly, down to earth, and stuffed to the gills with musical memorabilia, and a few Harley-Davidson motorbikes, it’s well worth a visit as it’s Stoke-on-Trent’s very own hat-tip to a Hard Rock Café.

Then there are the ceramics, which were shipped worldwide from nearly three hundred ‘potworks’ (or ‘potbanks’) which give the area its name. Of these, Wedgwood is probably the best known, but from mundane teacups to magnificent pieces like this life-sized Minton peacock, the ceramics from The Potteries are of a standard celebrated far and wide, to this day.

Having sampled one or two, I’m quite sure that the beers brewed at some of the area’s many breweries can hold their heads up with the very pinnacle of brews.

The impact this part of the country made on us in such a short period of time is profound. I believe this is reflected by the articles related to the Potteries I have shared here in the past, for example, Set in Stone and A Postcard from Petrolhead Paradise.

Together with those, I have tried to honour just a few of its famous characters (Mitchell’s Spitfire and Oh, What a Circus!), though there are many others, not least the wonderful Arnold Bennett, Captain John Smith of Titanic fame, or Admiral of the Fleet John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent, who deserve articles written about them too. Maybe, one day…

I had some fun bringing to your attention a game changing industrial powerhouse (One Small Step for Man… Brindley and the Trent and Mersey Canal) with its roots in The Potteries, and a local culinary delicacy too (The Staffordshire Oatcake: a regional delicacy).

But I am not alone in my admiration of The Potteries and, despite the decay and changing demographic we now see across the city of the six towns, I discovered that there’s another voice championing this place.

We stumbled across a framed poem, in the waiting room of Stoke-on-Trent’s railway station, and it really did capture my attention. By a local poet, one David Vickers, the poem is ‘A Potteries Idyll’, from which the title of this article comes.

Immediately, I wanted to know a little more of Mr Vickers, as his passion for The Potteries shines through. I wasn’t disappointed. A poet, yes, but he’s also a sometime columnist for the local rag, The Stoke Sentinel, and writes beautifully. Here he has published a series of reminiscences from his time working as the local ‘Man from the Pru’, bringing to mind our very own 10210ken.

Copyright prevents me from sharing his writing here directly, but there are some links to the pieces he published in the paper, chronicling his adventures, so that you can see for yourself if you’d like to.

First of a four-part series: Tales from the doorstep by the ‘man from the Pru’

His second piece: The doors opened and then out stepped two members of The Shadows – wearing bright orange make-up!

Then: A contract, working girls and a greenhouse full of weed…

And, supposedly, the final instalment: My days of death claims, TVs and sewing

A man of more than a few words, he couldn’t resist one more though: When this comes up, it’ll be millions

He’s published a book of his recollections, ‘Easily Distracted – A Potteries Odyssey’ which can be found on Amazon, and there’s a rather nice piece in The Stoke Sentinel about him: ‘I wanted to shine a spotlight on what makes the Potteries unique’

I’d love to sit down with the man over a pint or two of local ales and listen to his tales at first hand. I don’t imagine this will ever happen, but happy reading.
 

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