This series of interviews is designed for you to get to know the people who’ve chosen Rye as their home or place of work, a little more personally.Â
Subject of interview: Tabby Cole, who with her brother Josh, owns and runs Rye Pottery. Formerly a current affairs journalist, she has been back in Rye 9 years.
Twitter or Instagram?
Instagram for work, trying to get better at it and Twitter at home, for news and current affairs. But I don’t Tweet, I lurk, I’m a lurker.
Meat or fish?Â
Vegetables. I really like to eat seasonally and if you take your lead from vegetables that’s much easier. And then obviously you’ve got things like game as the season changes or fish in the summer. But I’m quite happy with a meal that’s entirely vegetables.
Music or talk radio?
Talk. Radio 4, Radio 5, Times Radio, LBC…Radio 1 on the school run.
Sand or shingle?Â
Shingle. I was born in Winchelsea and my family have been holidaying there for about ninety years. I’ve got a picture of my dad in 1939 on the beach at Winchelsea. But I do love Camber and the dunes and my son loves the dunes.
Coffee or tea?
Coffee, coffee, coffee; strong, black coffee.
Vacation or staycation?
Both. I love being around here, but I just went away for the first time in four years and hadn’t realised how much I’d missed it.
Dog or cat?
Cat. There is something alluring I think, about how offensively arrogant cats are. And I really hate walking. I love dogs, but couldn’t have a dog and not walk it properly.
Cinema or theatre?
Cinema. I’m not very good at the theatre, but my brother Josh goes to the theatre enough for both of us. Kino all the way.
Sun or shade?
Shade on a hot, sunny day. I hate the cold.
Why Rye?
I left London ten years ago, after twenty two years. I had a small child, his football could go into eight different gardens, I was sick of the park, so I decided to move closer to my parents and I’d grown up in Rye. I was working from home in a previous job and then my dad had a heart scare. My parents, Biddy and Quin, ran Rye Pottery before us and my brother got me drunk, because my mum was going to shut it; close, shut, sell, don’t care.
They were in their seventies and had been winding down for a while. We had an elder brother who died in 1998 and was expected to take over the business. Josh came round to my house, got me drunk and said we can’t let them do it; because our grandparents had run it before them and the company goes back to 1793. There was too much history, heritage, family all wrapped up in it together and please, please, please would I do it with him.
So I thought OK, I’ll take my work over there and do it in the shop and after about eighteen months we both got really sucked in and loved it. We’d always potted and done stuff all the way through our childhood, so that’s why Rye? because of family, history and heritage.
Image Credits: Natasha Robinson .
The last part, Why Rye?, is actually a really heart-warming story – many thanks, Tabby (and Josh), for sharing it with us. So pleased you took over the reins of such a long-established business. Rye changes all the time, as it should, but its potteries, its fishing fleet, its artists, its annual festivities, are all part of its history and what makes the place so unique.
Well done Josh and Tabby, it’s always a huge challenge to carry on with an established and historic pottery, and keep it flourishing.