[Alison knew potter Michel Cardew’s children] because we all belonged to a philosophical society in London. Mother [went], father wasn’t interested, and it was a very very interesting group of people, who studied philosophy every week – evening lectures with a very wonderful teacher, and then he was such a special man that other special people came to him from other parts of the world, who were interested in sacred dance, and one of them was an old chap from Turkey, from Istanbul, called Father Resuhi who taught Mevlevi Dervish Whirling, and I was lucky bunny enough to be around, and learn this dervish whirling. I was about 18. And also there were potters there – excellent artists. It was called The Study Society, because in those days you didn’t give away too much. It took all kinds of people who learned about it. They happened in Talgarth Road in London – a great big house dedicated to it. If you were a member you were pretty dedicated, you would go every week.
But I remember it being pretty serious minded stuff. It was a very important place for me and my mother. She was quite a girl, although I don’t think she was at all a good mum, but she was a very interesting woman, and she was a think a bit stifled by her husbands lack of interest in esoterica, so I think I inherit from Joan an interest in esoteric things. The only really good thing that I remember about her was that she was a member of that society, and it was through that, that I met my teacher in metal work, who was called Claude Geoffroy-Dechaume, Claude was also a member of this society, and it became clear that I wanted to learn jewellery making, and so I became apprentice to him, and that was a most rich time, and he had a most wonderful workshop which was where one of those famous impressionist painters had his studio in Kensington somewhere. My father I suspect was very interested in craft, and they always had lovely things, but probably it was his own mother, my grandmother Hannah, that was the spark to all this because she was a great lover of beauty, in fact it was her father too who was a great character [Anthony says WS Caine] and their home was filled with beautiful objects. I was very lucky to be surrounded by the stuff Mil.
post script
You will notice they are somewhat swirly in the decoration… a lot of sense of swirl in the paintwork, because the man who did them, he and I shared the swirling skirt of the dervish together, we were both swirling dervishes – when was it Anthony? – way back in the early 80s? When I was about 20… [Mil says NO, not 80s…. late 50s / early 60s]. Anyway at that time mil, my mother used to take me to a very interesting philosophy society which was obscurely called The Study Society and it met in Talgarth Road in London in a huge ballet studio and it attracted a great many very interesting very intelligent and rather distinguished people.
Among them some fine artists, now the artist of these pots is called Alan Caiger-Smith (Aldermaston pottery) and there was nobody around at all at that time who did that kind of pottery design. These were I think a wedding gift to me at my marriage with George, my mother commissioned them. He was a colleague, we were part of this study society, of students of philosophy, and it was very much a part of my youth. I love these dishes really because I find a lot of joyful movement in them.
I think he exhibited his stuff in the studio at Talgarth Road, but I can’t remember how I bought these things Mil [she just said…] I think the small ones are user friendly, I used them this morning for my cereals.
I can remember how he did this dervish whirling, because its a very specialist thing how westerners cope with oriental activities. Whats fun about the swirl of this jar is it reminds me of the amazing skirts that we all wore and everybody had their own personal problem as to how to get the lift of their skirt up.
[Mil – where was your first home with George] Well it was up in a little village called Carlops wasn’t it Anthony? [Yes in West Linton]. It was a very little cottage indeed at the end of a street and it was a most lonely place indeed for a newly married woman, fresh from London, to up and live, if you can imagine, a tiny little outside Edinburgh village, just one little straggling street and I seem to remember houses were only on one side of the road. [Mil asks, why were you there? did George have a teaching job in Edinburgh?]
Yes he did, an art history post. [about honeymoon in Yugoslavia] Oh yes I remember being shown off to his mother, who looked at me with a very scornful eye! [Mil asks if they had lived together before they were married and Alison says I don’t think we did]. I think we chose it [the house] in a great hurry. I seem to remember though that I was pregnant, I was just pregnant I think [Anthony says you would hardly have known because after all you were there for at least 6 months, he was there for the whole academic year, and Milorad was born in Newcastle after the academic year]. I think it was rented…I can’t remember, I was very busy just surviving. [Anthony – She was busy being a Yugoslav wife – When i went to visit her there, she had been making this stew all day and all the previous day to George’s specification on the stove – I do remember to my very British tastes it was an unusual stew] [Mil talks of a Yugoslav cookbook and Alison says] I’m sure I would have been slavishly following it, not being a natural cook. I did not have a car, I used the bus a great deal. George didn’t drive. My biggest memory is of the view from the back of the cottage looking up to a very lonely line of hills, the Pentland Hills, and they sheltered that village. It was quite a desolate little place I remember. It was quite lonely. [Anthony says when I went to visit her I really felt she was isolated from the life that she knew]. But it was very interesting to be at the end of a row of houses, and thats why i probably love being in the middle of Royal Terrace. All I do remember is that I enrolled almost immediately in the art school jewellery class – is that right? [Anthony doesn’t think she did and says she just worked away at her silver work] [just to return to the jars] i’ve always found them a very lovable kind of jar.
The Royal Collection 