When I was a little girl growing up in Devon, the seaside souvenir shops sold pretty ceramic door plaques painted with flowers and names on them, for children’s bedrooms. Needless to say, in Devon, in the 1970’s, ‘Gretel’ was not included, to my eternal disappointment. My mother must have mentioned this to a local pottery artist, as one day this kind woman presented me with my very own personalised egg cup. Naturally I was surprised and delighted - and only slightly disappointed that she had (as was often the case) spelt my name incorrectly. But it was a lovely gesture and I still have it over fifty years later and this rare photo of my mum and I together, all the more precious as I lost her just a few years after this was taken.
