Clay is in Dave Barker’s blood. So is infinite patience.

And tact.

He became quickly obsessed with my bottom. He was afraid I was losing it.

“Watch your bottom now! Apply constant pressure to your bottom! Your bottom is far too big! Compress your bottom. Squeeze and lift it!”

He sponged me down.

It was almost too late.

It was meant to be a work of art. It could very nearly – but for his masterly and timely intrusion – have turned out like a transporter malfunction on Star Trek.

More woebegone than Minoan, it had the potential to be worthy of the Generation Game.

Looking more thrown up than thrown.

Certainly no priceless Borghese vase.

“It’s a slow day when someone doesn’t mention Brucie, the Generation Game and the famous potter’s wheel! Or the film, Ghost”, said Barker, a third-generation potter from Stoke-on-Trent who teaches people to throw in the “Master Craft Studio” at the new £34 million World of Wedgwood Visitors’ Centre in Barlaston, Staffordshire.

The Finnish-owned manufacturing facility and complex still accounts for half of the total production of the iconic ceramic UK brand, founded in 1759.

At the new centre, guided soft-handedly by resident artisans like Dave, you can try your hand making a pencil box, a bud vase or a simplistic and sometimes even classically watertight bowl – using balls of gooey Cornish clay, as used in traditional Wedgwood ware.

“If your cup fails it can be quickly turned over and turned into a Christmas tree bauble,” added David whose father and grandfather were both local “Pot Bank” and “Slip House” (pottery factory) workers.

Your handiwork is dried and then put in a kiln for 24 hours and, a fortnight later, sent to you. You can also ornament it. A 250 year-old family business allows you to make your own family heirloom.

In the decorating studio you can create your own medium coffee saucer, votive plate or bespoke butter dish.

Visiting the home of Wedgwood is a very hands-on experience.

Dave continues division of labour which the company’s founder espoused. “Some people panic and are very nervous. Having seen the disasters on TV! And remembering school pottery classes! But they’re all amazed how good they can be. And what they can produce. With a bit of encouragement. I taught a Colombian family. And an elderly lady who couldn’t believe what she had made! She was so scared of the wheel!”

In the adjoining Wedgwood Museum, saved largely by a public fundraising campaign and grants, you can see one of the world’s finest ceramics collections, including the Apotheosis of Homer vase. For sale in the shop are “repro” items like a First Day vase (€3,924), a Chinoiserie Ginger Jar (€3,620), Pot Pourri Jar (a lot cheaper than the original) and a black basalt “Three Graces” table lamp (€3,077).

What is now an international ‘luxurious and home lifestyle brand’ is still essentially a community with craftsmen and women using age-old manual skills

Wedgwood is very collectible. In 2009, a five inch-high chipped Wedgwood teapot was sold for C117,254.

You can now go on an escorted or self-guided tour of the factory, chatting freely to tradespeople like prestige raiser and gilder Christine Hughes who has worked for “Wedgwood” for 41 years. You meet prestige painters who introduce you to their squirrel hair brushes and 22ct German gold.

You walk through the factory floor, passing en route master handle casters, engine turners, prestige throwers, stacked battes, Willet pumps and ex-Royal Doulton casting machines as well as learning all about black stone bodies, fettling, saggars, biscuitware, caneware, jiggery, jolley, blungers and knockers.

As well as, of course, all you want to know but are afraid to ask about… diddling sticks.

What is now an international “luxurious and home lifestyle brand” is still essentially a community with craftsmen and women using age-old manual skills. The factory is currently producing 20,000 pieces for the Presidential Palace in Dubai.

US President Roosevelt commissioned Wedgwood to supply the White House. The Russian government more recently placed an order too. Catherine the Great was a great fan of Wedgwood, making an order worth €3,264 in 1773.

The new centre also has one of the best museum restaurants in the country. Manager Mike Keane and chef Tom Sawyer’s “The Dining Hall” is based on the original staff canteen. Its walls are decorated with original moulds, black and white photographs and original clocking-in machines.

With a little help from his wife’s dowry, Josiah Wedgwood originally founded the company in the Ivy House works in Burslem. His father was a potter. The business moved in 1762, relocating to Etruria where you can still see the bone and flint grinding mill.

Wedgwood was inspired by ancient pottery collected by his friend, Sir William Hamilton, British Ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples. Designers like John Flaxman reworked ancient motifs.

Josiah perfected “cream ware” earthenware which took the eye of Queen consort, Charlotte, wife of George 111. The “Queensware” range is typified by an embossed ivy leaf or similar border.

Wedgwood opened its first London showroom in 1765. By 1790 the company was exporting all over Europe. Josiah died in 1795, having had one leg amputated through smallpox

Inspired by the first century BC Portland Vase, he invented his signature jasperware (barium sulphate) with neo-classical reliefs in the 1770s.

In the early days, a third of the factory’s output was stolen by highwaymen. In 1812 came bone china. In 1865, majolica. Then tiles. The family became a dynasty. And still holds the royal warrants for tableware and giftware.

The Etruria Works on the Trent and Mersey Canal ran for 180 years. The motto of the works was Artes Etruriae Renascuntur (Arts of Etruria are reborn). The Barlaston factory was built in 1938.

The best place to stay is a mile up the road at The Upper House. The area was originally famous for its barge-building. Built in 1845 for Josiah’s grandson Francis (Frank) who died in 1888, it is now a hotel (as Etruria) with a Portland stone cantilevered staircase, landscaped gardens, a woodland walk and rooms named after regular visitors Ivor Novello and Charles Darwin who was Wedgwood’s grandson.

It is said that Francis started every day “with a cold saucer bath and dumb bell exercises”.

In the dining room is a triptych of paintings by Rob Pointon depicting Francis (Frank) leaving for work on his horse Jackdaw and his grandson Cecil playing in the grounds. Cecil grew up to become the first mayor of Stoke – six towns comprising the early 17th-century potteries: Tunstall, Burslem, Hanley, Stoke, Fenton and Longton.

Passing out of the family in 1913, the building became a home for the elderly and the blind.

Due to the availability of clay, lead and coal as well as the advent of the railways, the Wedgwoods became the fathers of commercial English potters. Based on “purity, simplicity and antiquity,” they became know as the “vase makers generral to the universe”, their every work “a composition of excellence”.

Their work continues to this day, for professionals and visitors alike.

I obeyed instructions. I listened to Dave. I concentrated on my crab claw grip. I tried to keep my elbows anchored into my side. Passionate about my art, my face turned a distinctive Staffordshire red-brown. And then, in the throes of the creative process, to an authentic pale Florentine blue.

And throughout it all, my teacher’s eyes never for one moment became glazed.

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