In the spring of 2006 I enrolled for a mosaic course at West Dean. I’ve been an amateur mosaicist for over ten years and looked forward to having  a good time playing around with tiles and cement. On one of the evenings our instructor, Sonia King, and Emma Biggs who was instructing the parallel class, surprised us with a preview slide show about their new book on mosaics. Also Emma took the opportunity to give a small presentation about the Made in England project. I was immediately interested in making a contribution. But I had no pottery I could use.
I decided to look for a suitable contribution on one of my bounty hunts. Whenever I’m in England I love to roam the many charity shops. This spring the hunt took me to Salisbury. Most of the pottery I found was not made in England however but very often made in China. Just in time I ran into a plate with a backstamp of Gray’s from Stoke-on-Trent. This seemed the ideal contribution -the sailing ship being an important symbol for both our countries.

The lady who sold the plate to me mentioned the fact that it had such a nice picture on the front and that the plate was in good condition. I did not have the heart to tell her that the plate would be smashed to harvest the backstamp eventually.