“If you see the wall there, and all around the pottery, there are several hundred heights of children. Those children are coming back at sixty now... We’ve got the third or fourth generation coming back.“
When children come into his pottery studio, John Bourdeaux often marks their height on his walls. He has been doing it for so long that some of the original small people are now grandparents!
He recounts how he bought a barn, originally intended for storing his boat, but how it eventually became his pottery workshop where he has remained for close to fifty years. John clearly loves meeting different people and seeing customers return over the years.
John also tells us about moving to Scilly as a child and what adventures he used to get up to when he was young. It was also riveting to hear what it was like to come into Scilly as an outsider, and how his family were treated by different individuals on St Mary’s when they took over one of the shops in the centre of town.
If you enjoy entertaining stories from the past, this episode is for you! John Bourdeaux clearly revels in spinning yarns and even refers to himself a “master of BS" during our chat! Some of his stories push the boundaries, and whilst we could have cut them, we chose to keep them in... We’ll let you decide for yourself whether or not that was the right choice!
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Find out more about what the hosts, Kylie and Erica, do in their day-to-day lives on Scilly:
