Pontypool

The one thing about waiting for your body to recover from a virus is that it gives you the time to go on-line and look up the things that interest you. Today in a nostalgic mood I trawled through references to Pontypool. Some sad (I discovered that my old school closed some years ago), some sentimental (a photograph of the bridge by the canal where my sons would fish for frogspawn) and then what I was really looking for - Japan Ware for which Pontypool was known.
The black, beautifully decorated and highly lacqued trays and plates that I have seen are exotic and oddly out of place in a small South Wales valley where the main industries were coal and iron. It's the clever use of these resources that is so inspirational. By rolling the iron into thin sheets it could be moulded into objects. By extracting oils and varnishes from the coal the objects could be painted and lacquered. All this took place in the early 18th century and now is just history but I remember Japan Ware as a child. I didn't appreciate it then and now that I do, I have to go to the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff to see it.