Kirkcaldy Potteries
'Kirkcaldy Potteries' looks at the working lives of the people who worked in the four potteries from the 1850s to 1930, producing the world-famous Wemyss Ware as well as thousands of pieces of more everyday earthenware.
It includes first-hand interviews with workers including memories from a 90-year-old woman who decorated plates in the Links Pottery when she was 14 and was scolded if she got the pattern wrong; family reminiscences about some of the famous artists including Karel Nekola, master decorator; and the time when streets in Kirkcaldy were bottomed with bits of broken Wemyss Ware.
There are also excerpts from letters written in 1860 by one of the pottery owners; and events such as the strike where kilnmen downed tools for another sixpence a day, annual day-trips, and presentations to workers after half a century in the potteries. The book is illustrated with more than 90 photographs of people, places and products as well as maps and ephemera, many of which have never been published before, with an 8 page colour section showing some of the beautiful pieces of pottery now commanding high prices.
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