London

I met Prue Venables when she was a student on the Harrow Pottery course in the early 1980s, when I was invited by the course director Jerome Abbo to teach one day a week. I did not teach her ceramics − I was the wrong sort of potter to be employed in the clay studios, where the wheel was still the main focus. But I did run writing projects with the students and drawing workshops alongside Andrew Greaves. It was a period of creative expansion, when the course was broadening its interests beyond the bulk production of handmade tableware that had been its emphasis in the 1960s and 1970s. It was clear that Prue loved being a student there and immersed herself in all aspects of it; she was respected for her strong work ethic and openness to teaching, to trying things out, almost as if they were experiments in a lab. And she made long-term friendships with staff and students.