"Gaudy Welsh" teacup and saucer

"Gaudy Welsh" teacup and saucer

Culture, customs and pastimes

In the kitchen of my parents house in Cardiff, there’s a set of china cups, saucers and plates on a large dresser. The blue is a shiny dark cobalt blue and the orange on the flowers a deep earthy colour. The pattern is quite simple with a distinctive tulip motif – a nod perhaps to the designs of the Chinese and Japanese porcelain which was the inspiration for much European china in the 1700 and 1800s. This type of china is often called ‘Gaudy Welsh’ (a not entirely complimentary name), but I love the bright contrasting colours.

I’ve always been aware of the sense of connection that objects can give us to the past. For me, these pieces of china aren’t just pretty decorative objects, but a physical link to my mother, grandmother and my great-grandmother, who I never met. She is alive though in the stories of my mother and grandmother.

Like many women of that time and place, she was a formidable character, running her own dairy business and bringing up 3 children in Garnant, a small mining village in Welsh speaking West Wales. The set was given to my great grandmother and her husband when they got married in 1871 (as recorded in the entry in our family Bible). It is much treasured and I hope one day I’ll be able to pass it on to my daughter too, a welcome link to the past.

1871

Helen Pooley

Museum of Oxford

Helen Pooley

Helen Pooley