Charles and Camilla came. We made sure they didn’t see the one depicting them
My husband, Keith, and I own 8,450 teapots. It all began in 1983, a couple of years after we married. We were young and setting up a home in Kent. We had a glass display cabinet in our kitchen – we tried putting our pantry stuff in it, but it looked a bit tacky, filled with cans of baked beans.
My nan offered us a teapot instead. It was a blue and brown one, hand-painted with yellow flowers. We liked it. Then my aunt offered us a teapot from her wedding set. It was one of her most prized possessions, the kind of item that gets used only on Christmas Day. We gladly accepted.
For the first couple of years, we collected traditional teapots. My first novelty pot was a Cardew Royal Albert. But it wasn’t until we went on holiday to Devon that we realised we were obsessed. We saw a leaflet in our B&B for a teapot factory. Keith said, “We have to go!” We’ve bought every teapot the owner has designed.
