Dear Shepherdess,
When I was a child, Mum and I would occasionally spend a day together scouring local second-hand and charity shops looking for treasures. This continued into my teens, and then into my twenties. Through example, Mum taught me that you don’t need lots of money to have a beautiful home – you just need taste and a good eye.
Over the years, I’ve spent many a rainy and sunny day treasure hunting, so much so that the weird stale smell inside the local salvos’ has become comforting if I’m having a bad day – I know, weird. But trust me: when you’re having a bad day, nothing else can cheer you up quite like finding an Asiatic pheasant piece amongst a pile of old plates at the recycling centre. It’s gems like those that make the dusty fingers worthwhile, and there’s one find in particular that ranks top for me.
On a miserable Ōtautahi Christchurch day, I impulsively popped into a Salvation Army shop on my way home. Upon entering I was drawn to the kitchenware area where the volunteers had set up colour-coordinated displays of red, orange, green, black and blue. When my eyes reached the blue display I froze. The rain was pounding on the roof above the shop, it felt like a daydream and I wondered if what I was seeing was real. I went towards it and lifted it off the display, feeling the hefty weight of it in my hands – no chips, no cracks, it was real. I had in my possession a 35.5 centimetre diameter Friendship Pottery bowl.
Cream in colour, with two distinctive navy bands, this bowl wasn’t the kind of thing you would usually come across in New Zealand. With a bit of research, I discovered that Friendship Pottery was an American company, originating in Roseville, Ohio. The generous proportions of the bowl hint towards this history, and I wondered how it came to be here. Whatever its journey, the bowl now lives in the kitchen of my beautiful mum. I felt it fit best there. As summer comes to a close with an abundance of stonefruit and tomatoes to preserve, I look forward to taking it down off the shelf and putting it to good use.
Poppy Prendergast
Manuherikia Alexandra, Central Otago
This letter appeared in our Ngahuru Autumn 2024 Edition.
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