For an account of what is happening in the pottery today see 'happspottery.com.au'. This is the story of its evolution as written by Ros Happ

After eight years running the pottery at Vasse, we decided we needed more space for the pottery and Erl felt he could now retire from teaching and make a good living from pottery alone.

With typical zeal, he began looking for land on which he could develop the pottery and possibly plant some vines. He began knocking on the doors of local farmers to ask if they wanted to sell any land. Eventually, he came across Harry Mewett. They struck up a friendship based on mutual admiration. Erl was struck by Harry's wealth of farming knowledge and gentlemanly ways, and Harry by Erl's zeal and energy. Both were country boys. Harry had recently acquired 55 acres that he wasn't using and offered it to Erl. But Harry's conditional purchase obligation meant he couldn't sell until he had a freehold title and the government demanded that the land be all fenced and half cleared.

So, they fenced the land together. Harry made a generous offer and Erl counter offered an extra thousand! This outcome was typical of Erl's methodology. We purchased our first Karridale block 24 years later in similar style.

'Hand made' was the inspiration of the era. Erl was fascinated at the prospect of building with sun dried mud bricks. The idea was too 'out there' for the local council to approve, but, with the assistance of the local member Barry Blaikie he won the approval of the minister for planning.

We found an old pug mill of small dimension in the scrap yard of the then Orange Grove brickworks, purchased a sixty to one reduction gearbox at auction. We asked the local metal workshop 'Hyder and Beatty' link the two together and construct a mouth to extrude an eleven by five inch brick. One guy shovelled while the other cut off the extrusion at fifteen inches as it ascended a bank of apple carton rollers. The tractor supplied the power via a PTO shaft. The trials were disastrous. The clay flowed from the middle faster than at the edges with the result that the extrusion cracked on all external surfaces. After a couple of months of frustrating failure a former brick maker turned up and explained the use of oiling plates, and back pressure to ensure that the corners filled properly. That helped. Secondly, by December the earth that had been excavated in the winter had dried out sufficiently to accept water properly. Thirdly, we worked out that a few shovels of sawdust and sand in every ten helped the auger to crumble the clay and keep it feeding rather than simply spinning around. Once the machine was working efficiently, Erl and his off-sider, Anton Cheney, could churn out 500 bricks a day. These were left to dry in the shade of the shed, soon to become the garage.

When it came to concrete, a team of twelve helpers ran four cement mixers using the local grit from just up the road. We had a smoke at the end of the day but there were no beers.

The bricks were laid in a month by a team of four. The window and door frames were constructed from railway sleepers collected from the Wilga Mill. Telephone wires at the time were being put underground, so we purchased a few kilometres of poles real cheap (stamped with the mark of convict labour) and put them to use as veranda poles and roof beams. The cross-arms became internal wall cladding. With experience in building arch kilns, Erl incorporated a number of arch windows and doorways which added a good deal of charm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you're a woman, you're probably wondering what was happening at home! By now we had three children, aged 4, 2 and a baby. I was doing enough piano teaching to pay for the cleaning lady, and serving customers in the pottery. No, Erl didn't help hang out the nappies and disposables were useless in those days. Yes, he did work seven days a week and there were no child care centres. When I was exhausted, I would go to Perth for a week and stay with my mum and dad. It was a tough but exciting time. Erl would always put the children to bed and read them stories, no matter how tired or late he was. While the children were babies, I practiced for my higher grade piano exams and finally passed the A.Mus.A - a performer's exam. I have been grateful for this ability to pursue my own talent and still enjoy teaching the piano very much.

Back in the business front, two stories emerge from this point: the development of the new pottery, and the simultaneous development of the vineyard and winery. For clarity I'll keep them separate, and tell the story of the pottery first.

Developing the pottery.

We set-up to purify and mix our own clay, dug from the property, which was mixed as a 'slip' (clay suspended in water) then gradually dewatered to achieve quantities of about five tonnes per batch. We regularly travelled to collect our own minerals for glaze production, and milled them on site. Our huge oil kiln did both bisque and glaze firings simultaneously. We had ample production and gallery space. However, our previous location was just outside the main tourist hub (Busselton), which was as far as most tourists ventured. Dunsborough was a sleepy farming village. We were another 5km up a single lane gravel road. Would our clientele follow us?

They did. Business thrived. Long dusty bumpy potholed gravel roads were part and parcel of country travel in those days. People didn't mind. The pottery went from strength to strength. Well, enough to keep food on the table and finance Erl's viticultural and winemaking initiatives. When we employed someone to clean and look after the children each morning I could enjoy uninterrupted creativity in the pottery. So much FUN. My potting improved rapidly. The spirit was infectious. Erl's mother Eunice and sister Liz quickly became competent potters, and whoever we employed in other parts of the business were welcomed and joined in the party. We formed a great team, filling up the oil kiln every 10 days through the busy periods and barely managing to keep the shelves stocked.

Of course, the children loved to play with clay and became used to helping, and sometimes seeing their creations find their way into the hands of satisfied customers. On the days we unpacked the kiln, we'd drag them out of bed to help clean the shelves and put stickers on the pots before the customers came.

The place became a launching pad for local artists en-route to their own show. Sculptor Anton Cheney who had helped since the beginning was gifted five acres on which he began what is now Goanna Gallery. Ian Dowling went on to found the 'Margaret River Pottery' constructed of mud bricks in the main street of town. Gary Nichols formed Cowaramup Pottery. Others passed through en-route to their own artistic careers. Kim Potter joined the team in 1986 and is still there today.

What was it like to raise a family amidst this?
I’m grateful Erl chose occupations that allowed him to live and work at home. Our youngest son grew up with his father at home. As a toddler he would stagger around like his father with a clamp in one hand and a hammer in the other. He used to build ‘little wineries’ around the construction site from reinforcing and ‘mud bricks’, or sit on a stool next to Anton learning his sculpting techniques.

The other advantage of working at home is that you can stop and eat with the family. Dinner times and good wine were important. The children still remember Erl reading them classic stories like 'The Hobbit', ‘Lord of the Rings’ , and ‘A Fortunate Life’.

As it grew
The vineyard and the pottery worked in together very well. The vineyard did not need a lot of attention in the summer when the pottery was busiest. However, by the late eighties, the winery business had grown and was absorbing more and more time. To make good pots requires lengthy periods of uninterrupted absorption in 'Flow' states of consciousness from which true beauty can emerge. Erl was busy expanding the winery, and Lyn and Liz had more responsibilities in looking after the vineyard and the packaging of the product. The time to pot grew thin. I kept potting in the holidays. I was teaching music in schools during term time.

The next generation
Our eldest son Myles grew to be a very competent thrower. When 16 he explored the world of raku showing his father’s ability to take on something completely new, overcome the obstacles, and achieve great results. After finishing school with a ‘Certificate of Excellence’, and acceptance to Science/Engineering, he decided to defer, make pottery, and travel. He purchased a motorbike and whilst still 17 embarked on an around Australia trip by himself. Upon return he continued developing his ceramic talents for a few years before studying Science/Engineering then moving to Sydney to try his arm at expanding Happs wine into the Sydney market. He married his long time girlfriend Jacquie Cummins, and on a trip home remembered how much he loved potting and so returned to invest in building the pottery business, which he still runs today.

In between those times our youngest son Jeremy explored his ceramic talents to finance a series of Indonesian surf adventures. He extensively invested in glaze development which Myles has continued to make the beautiful range of colours we have today. Jeremy studied fine art in Perth for a year before visiting his sister Suzanne in India who was studying eastern philosophy. After a month of study he discovered the rich potential of India's ancient wisdom to furnish a life vision that could provide bottomless artistic inspiration and potential for personal growth and fulfilment. He stayed on to complete the 3 yr course. Then completed a BA in philosophy, and qualified as an advanced yoga and meditation teacher. Suzanne married an Indian from Durban where she now lives and runs the Vedanta Life Institute South Africa where she teaches regularly and runs corporate well-being programs.

For the full deal on what's happening in the pottery today see 'www.happspottery.com.au'.

When we planted the first vines in 1978 we had no tractor, no cultivator, no fertilizer spreader and no experience. The block had just been cleared, the timber burnt, and the ground ripped with a bulldozer. We collected the roots and burnt them, borrowed a tractor and levelled the ground.

For planting we drilled a hole in the ground with a hand drill driven by a small two stroke motor, poured in a cupful of superphosphate, kicked in some soil, inserted a cutting and kicked in more soil. Most of the cuttings ended up too close to the fertilizer and didn't grow roots. We bought a kerosene fuelled 'Farmall' tractor and replanted the following year.

To begin in viticulture you need to be naive, and boundlessly optimistic.

The wine industry is capital intensive. It's a tall order on a teacher's salary. Our approach was to personally create the buildings, build the tanks and the press, learn how to assemble and recondition barrels, use a simple bottling unit and choose a product range requiring less refrigeration. We kept things as simple as possible and watched our pennies.

Fortunately, the pottery was working. The whole family made pots and people came in droves to see our curious house that the shire said we could not build, and marvel at the process whereby we sourced clay on site making honest useful stuff that people enjoyed using. Visitor numbers peaked during school holidays. Whilst working in the vineyard, the pottery was sometimes unattended, our cash register (a pottery casserole) on the wrapping table, a little sign next to it pointing to a bell saying 'ring loudly for service'. We'd run in from the vineyard, wrap the pots up in newspaper, then run back to work. We were fit.

Having planted some vines we needed a place to make wine, so we put the brick machine to work again. Our first vintage had high and low points. We had three tanks that were too big. The textbooks led us to pick the grapes too early. We kept the ferment too cool and chose inappropriate yeast. There seemed to be a school of thought amongst the local winemakers that the malolactic ferment might not be desirable. We were learning from books and there were few experienced winemakers in the district. But the first vintage 1981 Port that we made with Ian Lewis from Clairault took a Gold medal at the Perth Show, a first for the district. But, less successfully some of the first vintage dry red went to promoting bacterial growth in the clay. It was a bit too acidic for comfortable drinking. So the 'learning' wines didn't go completely to waste. We learned quickly. In 1984 our Merlot of that year won the Sheraton Award for the Best West Australian Red.

The wine industry was new; people were curious and supportive. We enjoyed the interaction. It was a 'hippy' era. Envious visitors wondered whether they could make the sort of sea-change that we had accomplished. Producers wondered whether Margaret River could fulfil the expectation that the wines might be as good as Bordeaux. We occasionally bought a few very expensive wines to compare with our own.

In the first vintages our grapes were pressed in a small hand press, corked in a lever action hand corker, and labels were painted with 'Clag' and stuck on by hand.... How things change. We soon graduated to a larger press of traditional design constructed by my father in law Adrian Jones. This served us well for a number of years before we graduated to modern airbag presses. Some of the machinery used around the winery and vineyard we designed and built ourselves.

Initially we sold our wine from a small bar in the pottery with self-serve tasting. However, the business quickly grew so we built a dedicated cellar-door in a traditional semi-underground style which still serves the purpose today.

Although our first plantings were for dry reds (my passion), my wife Ros suggested some white may be in order. Thus encouraged I planted Chardonnay. Barry Thompson, then vineyard manager at Sandalford inspired me to plant Verdelho. When a sweet Verdelho took out a Sheraton gold medal, the Happs late picked style was established. We invented 'Fuchsia', a sweet, spritzig pink wine that retained much of the character of newly fermented juice and it opened doors in the marketplace. Happs became known as the place that made sweet wines. But, there are many sweet wine drinkers and many wine enthusiasts came to wine via Fuchsia, Pale Gold, Late Picked Verdelho and Vintage Port.

As the business grew, we sourced fruit from other vineyards. Purchased white grapes helped to keep up the supply of whites when reds were in surplus. Later a red wine boom occurred. Experiments with nouveau styles of red ultimately led to the production of the preservative free PF Red. PF White came later with the insistence of eldest son Myles who, working in the Sydney market, predicted its success.

By 1990's we were outgrowing our suppliers. I had learned a great deal about the principles behind growing good fruit. It was time to put theory into action. I was on the search again for new land.