Keith Brymer Jones on Clay, Bullying and Crying on The Great Pottery Throw Down

Keith Brymer Jones, born in London in 1965, publishes Firing Earth: An Unexpected History of Pots and Potters on 22 October. The potter, ceramic designer and Great Pottery Throw Down judge has held that role since the programme launched in 2015. His route there ran through punk: he was lead singer of the Wigs before an apprenticeship at Harefield Pottery in London, where eight years of work took him to head of production. He later founded his own company, producing pots and homewares for Conran, Habitat and Laura Ashley and developing his Word range. A hand-made breakfast range for Habitat numbered 16,000 pieces. Clay entered his life at 11, the same year he began at St Mary's in Hendon, where he was bullied for three years over his love of ballet, tap and Scottish country dancing; some tormentors pushed razor blades into his clay. Dyslexia had marked him as slow in the 1980s, but shaping the material felt, he says, like a religious calling. He skipped sixth-form days at the V&A to study pots. Television came via a viral parody of Adele's Rolling in the Deep, filmed at his business partner Dom's aunt's mansion; Richard McKerrow, then head of Love Productions, saw it and offered him the judging job, persuading him over wine. He wept within ten minutes of the first episode, and men still thank him for it. Bereavement counselling after his mother's death in his 20s taught him that emotional state affects physical state.