May 19 - While doing research for an appraisal, I came upon an article inserted into an old Staffordshire pottery book which at one time belonged to Elizabeth Chellis & Elizabeth was well-known for her notes and addenda!. It's a short poem entitled "Stafford Canal":
Where lichened locks all dripping cool
So deeply store their limpid pool,
Gay-painted barges dream & drowse
In soft shadows of haymows.
And by the inn with open door
Old bargemen speak of water lores,
Crews or cargoes, miles per day,
Copper bars, and bales of hay.
While off in distant growing gloom
I see dark massive Wrekin [large hill in Shropshire] loom
Low lightning-lit in Shropshire sky,
An anchored cloud as night flows by. R. N. T.
Wonder if this is how Josiah I thought about the Canal~~it certainly caught Elizabeth's sharp eye.
May 19 - another article, dated 4 Feb 1947, from Elizabeth's book and so timely even today: "Hensley [sic] Wedgwood...arrived in this country on a business trip. He was interviewed by a group of ...writers about the manufacture & sale of Wedgwood. One interviewer noticed that in his lapel he wore a tiny pin on which was the letter "E". When asked if this was a British award, he answered, 'It's there to remind people about the correct spelling of my name - that there's only one "E" in Wedgwood.'" Hensleigh is no doubt spinning in his grave.....
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