Saturday 2 September 2017

the mystery of the missing potters

The auricula project has ground to a halt, stymied by lack of pots.  After experimenting with vintage pots bought on the internet which turned out to be critically too small for plants that had to stand up to the general hugger mugger of the garden all summer long, I was delighted to discover a pottery in north Yorkshire still manufacturing classic long tom frost proof clay pots five inches in diameter.  I ordered a dozen last summer, which took ages to arrive because they had run out and were making another batch, and terracotta cannot be hurried, but when they came they were exactly what I wanted, and with a gentle irregularity that proved they were indubitably hand made.

The first set of auricula ended up being potted on later in the year than I would have liked because of the delay with the pots, and I fretted intermittently that they would get too wet standing outdoors and would rot, but tucked in under the rain shadow of a wall and the house they survived the winter, as did the pots.  In spring they burst forth into growth anew, now with several rosettes of leaves.  If I'd been growing them for show I'd have divided them, but since I was growing them for general garden display I was perfectly happy with larger plants, and with the five inch pots which were easier to keep watered than the tiny ones.  The auriculas flowered, the Systems Administrator built a shelf for them, I ordered some more plants in different varieties.

They went initially into round black plastic deep three inch pots.  I didn't want to overpot them at the start, and after last year I was fed up with trying to manage the tiny terracotta long toms out of doors.  By the end of July I was starting to think about moving them into their permanent pots in the autumn, so I logged on to the Yorkshire pottery website and ordered some more five inch long toms, plus one of a bigger pot that might be good for tulips as an experiment, so that I could see it in the flesh before buying a whole set of them.  The system is that you do not pay with the order, because the pottery has to work out what the delivery charge will be, which varies depending on the number and size of pots and whether they will nest inside each other for transport.  I waited to hear from them what the grand total would be, and when after a couple of days I hadn't heard anything I rang them, but got their answerphone.  The website warned that if they were digging clay there might be nobody there, so I left a message.

And heard nothing.  After a few days I rang again and got the answering machine, but there didn't seem any point in leaving another message.  And that is how it has gone on ever since.  Every week or so I remember the auricula pots and ring the pottery, and every time I get their answering machine.  Their website is still up and running.  I tried Googling their name, thinking that a craft pottery that had been in business on the same site since 1831 was not likely to go under without leaving a ripple, and found nothing, no story in the local paper about job losses or disappearing heritage, no mention in the News section of the village website (which did include a link to the pottery's website), no angry reviews by customers who had handed over their payment and not received their pots.  In the meantime the pottery's website and phone number float on like the Marie Celeste, undamaged, unoccupied, with no clue where the people have gone.

Maybe they are on holiday.  Perhaps they take a summer break.  They could be visiting family in Australia.  Perhaps they do not change the answering machine message because they don't want to advertise the fact they are not there to potential thieves.  Maybe they forgot to change the message before going away.  Perhaps they are ill.  Apart from keeping on ringing them and keeping an eye out for news on the internet there isn't a lot I can do, since I'm not planning to visit north Yorkshire in the near future.  I could contact the village website, but that seems rather odd.  If the pottery is still in business I should be able to get in touch with them by the normal channels, and if they aren't there's nothing the village website can do about it, and if they are ill the person who runs the website might not want to comment.  Only the auriculas need potting on now  so that they can start rooting into their new compost while it is still warm.  I have not managed to find anybody else selling five inch long toms, though since my last search I have been pursued by advertisements for pots which are too small or not the right shape.  I have found the name and phone number of one Essex potter who does not even have an email address, who will make to order and does some work in frost proof terracotta, but honestly it would be much easier if the Yorkshire firm would just crank back into action.

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