The ceramic blob had been sitting on Aunt Ethel’s sideboard for as long as I could remember. I called it the blob because that was what it looked like, unlike any pottery item I had ever seen. Aunt Ethel was vague when I asked her about it. ‘Oh, it’s old,’ she said. ‘I like it’, she added somewhat defensively.

Aunt Ethel was my favourite relative and I visited her as often as my busy social life could manage. I would take my love interest of the moment too and Aunt Ethel never batted an eyelid when they changed frequently. When Ginny and I got together and we moved into our flat as a couple Aunt Ethel accepted her as family and when, after twelve years, we split up Aunt Ethel commiserated but didn’t probe.

Lavinia was quite different to Ginny. She was an artist, and spoke knowledgeably about pottery, and when I took her to meet Aunt Ethel Lavinia was fascinated by the blob. ‘This looks interesting,'’ she said running her fingers gently around the crevices decorating its faintly blue surface. ‘I think it’s probably valuable.’

I looked at her in astonishment. ‘It’s so ugly’ I said. ‘And blobby’.

Lavinia gently turned the blob upside down. ‘I think it’s a Helene Fielder vase,’ she said slowly. ‘They sell for a lot at auction.’

I looked at the indistinct signature scratched in the clay. I could hardly read it. ‘Why do you think it’s a vase? It doesn’t look like one.'

Lavinia pointed to a small funnel-like protuberance at the top of the blob. ‘It’s like a Medina Axe Head vase, except they are glass’, she said. ‘It’s very valuable. Maybe Aunt Ethel will give it to you one day.’

I looked at the ‘vase’ with a new light. Its shape became less blobby and more sculptural. Its faint blue tinge looked more lustrous and it could, with imagination, be a vase. ‘It’s really quite beautiful,’ I said to Aunt Ethel one day. She looked at me in surprise. ‘I thought you didn’t like it,’ she said. ‘I didn’t use to,' I admitted, 'but Lavinia has helped me appreciate it.'

‘Well it’s yours,’ Aunt Ethel said. ‘When I die, of course.’

Over the next few years I would look at the blue ceramic vase whenever I visited Aunt Ethel. It truly was beautiful when you really looked at it – and appreciated its potential value.

Aunt Ethel died during the covid epidemic and I was named as her executor in her will. I diligently sorted out her affairs and rehomed designated items to their intended recipients. I saved the vase until last, carefully packing it into my bag with an album of photos and a file of receipts I was going to look at later.

The vase would be auctioned, but first I needed to take photos of it and look for any paperwork which might explain its provenance. I took the photos, marvelling at how the blue sheen glowed in the lighting I had arranged. It was hard to decide which angle showed it to its best so I tried several. 

Finally, I turned it upside down and took a photo of the signature. There was something about the signature that puzzled me but I just couldn’t put my finger on what that was.

That evening I casually looked through the photo album. It showed Aunt Ethel had many interests. She was in group photos on visits to stately homes, seaside resorts and walking holidays. She had a range of hobbies that changed over the years. Painting, woodwork, mosaics and … and pottery. 

I looked at a picture of an open day showing the pottery class. The students were standing behind a table with their creations in front of them. Aunt Ethel was there, standing behind a familiar looking object. It was the vase. Now I knew what was puzzling about the signature. It wasn’t H Fielder. It was E Fisher. Aunt Ethel’s name. And Aunt Ethel’s creation.

It was definitely not valuable. I looked at it again. It was an unattractive, shapeless amateur project with a faded, badly applied, blue glaze. It was an ugly shapeless blob.

Loved by Aunt Ethel but no longer by me.

Stephanie Dickinson

Stephanie Dickinson is a retired teacher and runs the creative writing classes alongside Peter Scott-Presland. 

She has edited two anthologies for Paradise Press.