Pottery Ladies. Miss Cooper, Miss Cliff, Miss Rhead and all the forgotten girls...... (Bizarre Girls) - ACE153.2

Clarice Cliff’s sister, Ethel. She and the next few interviewees talking about how they got into pottery work, and what they had to do. Paintresses. Photo of three children. Voice continues over. Archive film of commercial pottery activities. VO continues. Paintresses. Two women talking. Ethel Cliff talks about younger ones making tea for their elders. Archive footage. Ethel Cliff. Archive footage. Paintresses, one of whom explains she wanted to do more than basic cups and saucers and dishes: wanted to go into "the luxury trade". Illustrations of brightly ornamented bowls, vases, etc. Photos of her as child and young woman. Experiences at art school made her even more ambitious. Exterior of Burslem Art School, Stoke-on-Trent. Magazine photo of women students at Burslem School of Art. Another magazine photo – women watching film show. Interior. Colin Melbourne, former head of Burslem Art School, talking about the School. Photo of women in art class. Susie Cooper talking about the difficulty of copying living plant forms which changed during the course of the days they worked on them. Photo of young Susie Cooper. Melbourne explains that student numbers were greatest in the evenings when the school became full of life. Peggy Davies, pottery sculptor, explains that most of the pupils were working class, and mainly local. Melbourne. Davies talking about the "bohemian" atmosphere. Melbourne talks about the eccentricity of the artists there. Paintresses with a pot won by one of them, made by a thrower for the pupils. Davies about "team working" in which one member of a team would turn the handle to drive the wheel while the other worked. Drive-wheel for potter’s wheel. Davies explaining that the hand-driven wheel took a few seconds to start the actual potter’s wheel; that she had to do quite a bit of turning to earn her turn on the potter’s wheel. Archive film of potter at work. Paintress shows brightly coloured work she made at the Burslem Art School, including one she calls "the jazzy plate". Gladys Scarlett (Broad) shows work she made at art school, aged 14, some painted under glaze and some painted on glaze.