“Most people, given the right encouragement, tuition and push, should be able to create… I was lucky when I was a boy, I had a friend whose Mum was a very competent watercolour artist. She impressed upon me that everyone can do something. She made me realise that artists can be ordinary people, not anyone special.”

This belief, put forward by ceramicist Laurence McGowan to The Craftsman Magazine in 2003, was born of personal experience. For the first few decades of his life, Laurence regarded himself as very much ordinary. Born in Salisbury in 1942, he was the son of a Glaswegian who had lived through the depression and had a relatively tough life, so despite his success with clay at his school’s potter’s wheel he knew his parents would not regard art as suitable career path.

His parents moved to Australia for some years when McGowan was 16, and he worked as a draughtsman there before returning to the UK and joining The Ordnance Survey. But soon he moved to Iran for a higher salary, and his time in that country sparked an interest in Islamic art and architecture. When he finally settled back in the UK, now married with a child, he decided he would follow his dream and go to art college, but to his dismay he discovered that his periods overseas meant he was no longer entitled to a grant.

Disappointed, he started a series of short-term jobs, and almost by accident took two with established potters - first with Pru Greene at Alvingham Pottery Lincs. and then with Alan Caiger-Smith at Aldermaston, whom he had long admired.

“I knew that I wanted to work for him, and purely by chance came across an advertisement for a job with him at Aldermaston Pottery,” he said later. “I succeeded at the interview on the strength of my sketch book, which I took with me.”

From a stint working as a gamekeeper, Laurence had discovered a close rapport with nature and a sensitive eye for detail which was reflected in his wildlife drawings. “That’s when I discovered that I was perhaps put on this earth to decorate pots,” he added.

In 1979 he returned to his native Wiltshire and established his own workshop at Collingbourne Kingston. Having trained in the in-glaze technique of pottery decoration, he enhanced his thrown stoneware pots with brushwork patterns distilled from plant and animal forms. He also drew on the influence of Islamic decorative arts, and drew on his skill in calligraphy to add inscriptions.

Much of his output was commissioned as commemorative and presentation pieces. He produced a plate to mark the 21st anniversary of the Antiques Roadshow, one for the city of Royston to mark the Millennium, Royal visits and even the Yorkshire County Cricket Club Player of the Year trophy.

This lovely blue lidded pot is one of two pieces by McGowan that the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery has in its ceramics collection – bought the support of the HLF-funded Creative Wiltshire programme. It is decorated with a design of trees and birds.

McGowan retired from ceramics and closed his pottery at Collingbourne Kingston last year, and hopefully will enjoy a long and very well-earned retirement.