The potter and presenter on a tricky childhood, his religious calling for clay, and cross-dressing as Adele
Harriet Gibsone Sun 18 Oct 2026 15.00 CEST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google Keith Brymer Jones in 1976, standing in a carpeted room against a wallpapered wall, wearing a yellow T-shirt with a cartoon picture on the front, brown shorts, pulled-up beige socks and brown sandals, and recreating the picture in 2026 Keith Brymer Jones in 1976 and 2026. Later photograph: Pål Hansen. Styling: Andie Redman. Grooming: Alice Theobald at Arlington Artists using The Skin Diary and Benefit Cosmetics. Archive photograph: courtesy of Keith Brymer Jones Born in London in 1965, Keith Brymer Jones is a potter, ceramic designer and TV judge. After a stint as lead singer of the punk band the Wigs, he became an apprentice at Harefield Pottery in London. He went on to set up his own company, and created pots and homewares for retailers including Conran, Habitat and Laura Ashley, before developing his signature Word range . He has been a judge on The Great Pottery Throw Down since it started in 2015. His new book, Firing Earth: An Unexpected History of Pots and Potters, is published on 22 October.
This photo was taken in our family home in Finchley. Socks, shorts and a T-shirt was my usual outfit for scabbing around in the garden aged 11. I was a complete and utter square.
My main passion at this time was dancing – ballet, tap and Highland and Scottish country dancing. But I was starting to realise I should stop telling people about it. I was about to embark on my first year of secondary school at St Mary’s in Hendon and knew I’d get stick for it.
I kept it under wraps, but I was bullied for three years. It was the start of a difficult part of my life, especially after my grandfather died. His death happened in front of me, when he fell down the stairs while having a heart attack. Unsurprisingly, my OCD developed around this time; I used it to try to create a sense of control and order. Everything around me had to be at 90 degrees – pens, pencils and the curtains. My bedroom began to resemble an empty studio, because it was easier than having belongings. To this day, I do like a tidy workshop.
Although starting secondary school was traumatic, 11 was also the age I discovered clay. Back in the 80s, if you had dyslexia, you were considered thick, but as soon as I started to manipulate this material into shape, form and volume, I understood it. It felt like a religious calling – an epiphany – and it was the first time any teacher said I was good at something.
Very quickly, creativity became an obsession . I would stay in the art room during the lunch break and before and after school. Some of the bullies found out and put razor blades in the clay. I’d be throwing on the wheel and all of a sudden I’d feel a nick in the clay. At first I’d think it was a stone, but I’d look down and my hands were covered in cuts. Soon after that the teachers locked the door and gave me a key. By the time I was in sixth form, I would bunk off school to go to the V&A museum and spend the whole day looking at pots.
I grew up in a typical household for the time: my father went to work and my mother was a stay-at-home mum. She was a cookery teacher before they got married, and my sister and I would come home from school to find a piece of cake and a pint of milk waiting for us. Dad had a well-paid job as a head of a building society, but he hated it. Sport was his big thi…