Luke Judge

Ashley and Sydney Myott.  With growing demand for their wares, the company expanded and moved to the Brownfield’s Works in Cobridge, which is North of Stoke-on-Trent.  By 1925 they had extended the operation to the adjacent Upper Hanley Pottery. Myott began producing hand painted Art Deco wares of which the varied range of pitchers and vases were in high demand.   Many of these pieces survive today suggesting that output was extensive.  These Deco pieces display the famous gold Myott crown mark on the base. White ware was produced for the Cunard shipping company with the provision of cubist style tea sets.The company relocated again after 1949 to the larger Crane Street Pottery in Hanley and in 1969 were taken over by an American corporation Interpace. 1976 saw the company merge with Alfred Meakin Limited. The name was then lost after the company was taken over by the Churchill Group.

Myott produced many transferware patterns in addition to the Art Deco pieces.  Tonight my tablescape is using the pattern Bermuda, it is a rich chocolate brown transfer with handpainted shades of burgundy, yellow and green.  It’s stunning!

I began with an embroidered organza napkin angled on the table.  

Next I added four vintage lace trimmed napkins that I placed at an angle on the table, allowing each to hang over the edge a bit.  These are some my Mom gave me…she used them for dinner parties when I was a little girl….all those many moons ago….

cottage Ware art Deco, street pottery

Call it a tempest in a teapot. Pat Martin accused Rahim Jaffer last week of having “lied his ass off” to a parliamentary committee; now a parliamentary committee is accusing the salty-tongued NDP MP of “steeping his ass off.”

Mr. Martin, known for his sometimes over-the-top questions at the committee investigating with the Guergis/Jaffer affair, has some secrets of his own. It seems he steals tea – green tea, no less – from the House of Commons natural resources committee, which meets next door to his third-floor West Block office.

At least one Tory does not appreciate the light-fingered socialist tea drinker. Here’s an exchange from committee this morning (the chairman is Conservative MP Leon Benoit):

The Chair: There’s a point of order, Mr. Harris.

Mr. Richard Harris (Cariboo—Prince George, CPC): Mr. Chairman, Nathan may not appreciate this, but ever since I’ve been on the committee there’s been a shortage of green tea, and I had to think that somebody has been taking tea.

Now, we just saw the phantom tea-snatcher walk in and take a bunch back to his office next door.

Could I ask the clerk, with the agreement of the committee, to send him a letter, tell him to buy his own bloody tea?

Some honourable member: Hear, hear!

Mr. Richard Harris: I like green tea and he takes it every time we’re here.

The Chair: I’m not sure this is a point of order, Mr. Harris, but I think it’s been noted. Your comment has been noted.

Another honourable member: I beg to disagree, he’s not a phantom, he’s very obvious.

The Chair: We have another motion on the floor, so if you wish to…

Mr. Richard Harris: He’s steeping his ass off.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Harris.

Okay, back to the issue. If you’d like to deal with that, we could deal with it later.

The Winnipeg New Democrat, however, was more forthcoming than Mr. Jaffer after he was busted.

“I will confess to a proclivity towards green tea, and even to grazing the committee rooms in search of complimentary beverages,” Mr. Martin told The Globe in an email. “But it’s almost matter of tradition…

“I represent the riding of Stanley Knowles who in his latter years survived almost exclusively on a diet of Arrowroot biscuits and tea bags that he pilfered from committee rooms and the opposition lobby. Legend has it his suit pockets were always stuffed with complimentary tea bags, so there is good parliamentary precedent for the pursuit of complimentary beverages.”

He added: “In fact I’m told the Algonquin word ‘Ottawa’ actually means ‘complimentary beverages.’”

cottage Ware cariboo, phantom tea, tempest in a teapot