The house we lived in at Breachwood Green had once been a pub called The Sugar Loaf. In those days it was a small, detached cottage, just like the houses my children used to draw, with a path leading up to a door in the middle and with a window each side. I can’t remember one of the front rooms at all, because no one ever went in there. My memory of the other room is very hazy. I know there was a cupboard and inside lived a greyish brown lump of plasticine. It had a peculiarly revolting smell, and I was afraid of it. My dad tried to encourage me to approach the cupboard, open the door, and horror of horrors, lift the wretched lump out. I probably did it, because not doing as you were told was not an option. Not for children in those days.
My dad used to make things with this ghastly misshapen ball. He showed me how to form a little pot, the circular base first and then the long worm that had to be rolled carefully and then fixed around the edge to build the side, growing higher and probably wonkier.
I went to pottery classes later in my life. I’ve kept got some of the pots I made, and not all of them are wonky. I’m still not keen on the smell of plasticine.
Fimo’s fun, and so is clay. But not plasticine. Definitely not!