My brother, Derek Andrews, who has died aged 89, was a much loved potter and painter living in Cambridgeshire, helped by his wife, Margot, also an artist, with whom he ran a successful pottery. Derek had trained, for a six-month period in 1958, with the prominent artist Bernard Leach at his pottery in St Ives, Cornwall; he also became a talented landscape painter.
Diagnosed with cancer last year, Derek opted not to have chemotherapy, and instead, at the age of 88, turned to a new discipline – metal sculpture. He exploited a feeling of well-being that culminated in a successful exhibition of his work last winter at the Old Fire Engine House in Ely.
Born in Croydon, Surrey (now the London borough of Croydon), Derek was the son of Fanny (nee Maybourn), who had worked for a Harley Street doctor, and Arthur Andrews, a railway signalman. He was educated at Archbishop Tenison’s school, Croydon, and on leaving at 16 went to work in the local council office. A period of national service in the army followed, during which time Derek realised that council work was not for him. Much to our parents’ disapproval he declared that he wanted to be a potter. ( “That’s not work, it’s a hobby,” Arthur said.)
Undaunted, Derek secured a place in 1952 at Bretton Hall teacher training college in Yorkshire, where he met Margot, whose surname by coincidence was also Andrews, a talented painter who had trained at the Slade School of Art in London.
In 1955 they married, and, for the next 20 years, both taught at schools and colleges throughout Suffolk and the Fen country. Derek was then invited to teach ceramics part time at Bretton Hall, which gave him the opportunity to take a national diploma in design at Leeds College of Art, and the experience of using plaster moulds and slip casting.
In 1974 Derek and Margot felt the need to make a change. They wanted to give up teaching to run their own pottery and began looking at a number of prospective buildings in the Fen area.
Eventually they found a rundown coal store in a village close to Ely which, over the next 20 years, became not only their home but the successful Prickwillow Pottery. There they produced a steady line of products for sale including mugs, jugs, dolls, house-plates, and the very popular “Jack Spratt” gravy boat. They retired in 1995 to live in Cambridge and, more recently, in Ely.
Derek loved music and the arts, and was blessed with relentless creativity. He was also a man of kindness and patience. Having enjoyed the success of the Ely show, he requested no funeral or memorial, saying: “This exhibition of my work is my final gesture of a life well-spent, thus creating my own memorial occasion.”
Derek is survived by Margot, me, and by his nephews, Jeremy and Dan, and niece, Nicky.
