I have been interested for a long time in domestic china and linen which I have managed to find in charity shops, jumble sales or similar places.It has all been discarded in favour of something more up to date. All here in this show was "Ordinary" (although to have survived, perhaps kept for "best" china or linen. It is what people would have used in their lives and discussed their problems over. In acquiring these items I also researched the origins and manufacturers of the china (almost all here from Stoke on Trent). Much was produced under difficult and sometimes dangerous working conditions. The manufacturers have long gone (with the exception of Hudson & Middleton still using their original works), as has their industrial world - the result of cheaper competition from abroad, lack of investment, and the Clean Air Acts.
But the china and linen is fashionable again, and much harder to find in charity shops. It has all become a part of an industry of nostalia (even in restaurants and tea shops) - buying into an imaginary warm, cosy past; a nod to a golden age of security and decoration: Reality was, of course, nothing at all like that.