WHILE Pottery queen Emma Bridgewater, 53, may appear to have breezed along creating her eponymous lifestyle brand for the middle classes, having four children while her business grew and working closely with her husband Matthew Rice, in reality, life hasn’t always been as rosy for the pottery queen as her cheerful ceramics might suggest.

The daughter of a publisher, Emma had a privileged childhood growing up in north Oxford with her siblings, enjoying languorous sunny afternoons and enormous picnics which seemed to last all day. Her mother and father had three children before divorcing when Emma was a toddler.

They both remarried and had five more children between them. But life was to change irreversibly when her mother, Charlotte, on whom she doted and who inspired her ceramics business, suffered a horrific riding accident in 1991, which left her with permanent brain injuries at the age of 52.

She spent nearly three months in a coma and returned home in body but not in mind. For two years, the family looked after her, but she needed professional care and ended up in several nursing homes.

She says she has managed to run a business and bring up four children with a lot of concessions, an extremely supportive husband and a wonderful wider family, including fantastic in-laws.

Emma and her husband still do all the designs, including her two favourites, Toast & Marmalade and Oranges & Lemons. She also has a new collection with Sanderson and a range of toiletries in Marks & Spencer.

Yet it seems she is pacing herself better these days; it’s her mother’s influence which has helped her do that, she says.

“She was a very peaceful person to be around. One did quite a lot of lying around on the lawn trying to persuade someone else to go and make another tray of tea, and a bit more lying on sofas and picnics that lasted all day,” Emma recalls.

“I know I have to really remind myself to do that, because work life had me by the throat.”