~ David Richards, UK
Description
How I wish that I'd had a mentor! The truth is I was almost entirely self taught. My initiation as a Carnival glass collector was via a very slow burn. I'd grown up with one heirloom piece of purple Carnival glass, a wonderful Northwood Strawberry bowl, passed down from a Grandmother who had died long before I was born. When I got my own home I bought a Marigold ruffled Holly bowl just as a cheap ornament just because it was bright and I liked it.
It took me years to work out that there was actually any relationship between the two items. I started noticing other Marigold items in junk and charity shops but I imagined that the purple bowl was something different or unique, because I never saw anything else like it. This was long before the days of instant information via Google, but my curiosity was piqued and I was determined to find out more. Someone told me disparagingly that it was Carnival Glass, given away as cheap prizes at fairs and therefore crass, ugly and not worth bothering with: Oh, and yes it's all a nasty Orange colour, so don't waste time on it.
Thank heavens I then found a little booklet in a second hand book shop, by the late Raymond Notley, entitled "Shire Album 104 Carnival Glass". What a revelation this was. Although all the illustrations, except that on the cover, were in black and white, I finally got to see the fantastic range and variety of glass falling into this category; how it was made; what it's history was. I was instantly hooked. I determined to search out every piece photographed in the booklet. I didn't know how I was going to do this, but significantly this tiny 32 page booklet had a comprehensive bibliography and most importantly included contact details for CGS UK, of which Raymond was founding member. I followed up his references, joined the society, and as they say the rest is history.
Several years later I felt very privileged to meet Raymond in person when he came to the CGS UK annual conference as a guest speaker. It was a mark of how unassumingly humble Raymond was that he seemed genuinely taken aback when I mentioned to him what a great impact his little booklet had had on me. So if not actually a direct mentor, I would have to say at least by proxy Raymond Notley was probably the single most important person guiding me along the path to becoming a Carnival Glass collector.
~David Richards
