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May Scott at 22 - A drawing by Bernard Leach |
Born in 1914 into a publishing
family in England, May Scott as a young woman was torn between
music and pottery.
She reasoned that a potter
could always enjoy music on the side, but that a musician could not
spend an evening making pots.
So she chose pottery. |
"At an exhibition of craft work in Manchester, I saw the work of many potters,
including Bernard Leach. I spoke to him and said I wanted to come to St Ives to
learn more. He interviewed me behind his stall and I was accepted as a paying
student. I was thrilled at the prospect."
An 8in Crowan Pottery bowl - probably decorated by May Davis
May Scott
was a student at the Leach Pottery for a year in 1936 and 1937.
"I met Harry Davis whom I was later to marry. Shaggy and
long-limbed he seemed to be doing the work of three men. He had auburn hair and
a big beard and wore a loose shirt and baggy corduroys and his use of swear
words was something new to me. In fact I assumed that these words were Cornish
words."
"Under Harry's kindly tuition my throwing improved rapidly; he was a very
skilful thrower, something Bernard Leach never was."
"At the time of my arrival at the pottery Harry had just moved into a little
cottage six miles from the pottery. Our friendship ripened as the idyllic summer
months slipped by. One day greatly daring, for he was very shy, Harry asked me
to go to the pictures with him."
After
leaving the Leach Pottery early in 1937, she set up her own pottery in the
ground floor of a little back street mews in Clareville Street, South
Kensington, London, which she shared with her brother Laurence.
"Later, when I moved to London, a letter arrived from Harry almost every day,
along with boxes of anemones."
"I do not know when we decided to get married; it was so obvious that I
think that it was never mentioned until we discussed the where and the
when."
In 1938,
after their marriage, they sailed to the Gold Coast as Mr and Mrs Davis.
May admits in her autobiography, though, that she always regretted giving
up her own name.
Crowan Pottery iron glaze bottle, made and decorated by May Davis
In the early days at Crowan, May was fully involved
with everything at the pottery and "loved throwing". But after her third
and fourth children came along, she confined herself to doing the bulk of the
glazing and decorating of the pots, the pottery correspondence and
book-keeping, bringing up the children, and running the Davis household.
"Sometimes at the end of a day, I
hardly knew how to drag myself upstairs to bed."
After Harry's death in 1986,
May moved away from pottery, she found an outlet for her creative talents
in paper-making, and wrote a book about it. She continued to enjoy her
lifelong love of music and music-making - she was an accomplished
violinist - and spearheaded the local women's movement.
She also wrote her
autobiography -
May.
Crowan pot prbably decorated by May
May died in
New Zealand in the late morning of January 13th, 1995
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