"The first kitchen I can remember was painted the colour of blackcurrant fool (the instruction my mum gave the surprised painters) and we had a large white AGA which was fed with nuts of coke from a coal scuttle that needed riddling night and morning, followed by the familiar small scale drama of the emptying out of a tray of red hot ash to cries of ‘stand back!’ Our clothes hung up to dry on a rack above, the bantams wandered in and out under the disdainful gaze of Alfie the Siamese cat and Mum rolled out pastry for treacle tarts, quiches and other 60s staples on the white Formica. Since then there have been several other crucial kitchens in my life and almost all of them have had an Aga to lean on.
So when I set out to make kitchen china, before the first designs came the clear mental picture of the scrubbed kitchen table, the wide shelves of the dresser, and of course the AGA, which set the scene. With this in mind, it feels completely right to be working with the friendly AGA people; in fact I can’t think why we did not think of it ages ago! Our recent visit to their factory in Telford was a huge excitement for me. This part of Shropshire, known as Coalbrookdale, really is the cradle of our Industrial Revolution and to discover that from start to finish every AGA is made here, by hand, by skilful craftspeople, just as cooking ranges have been made for British kitchens ever since we stopped cooking over an open fire- well I could not have been more thrilled."