By Roslyn Happ

The development of the pottery came first, and then the development of the winery. Erl Happ’s enthusiastic and innovative stamp is on both. This story also covers the early days of the winery as there was a period when the pottery was supporting the vineyard development.

The early days on the beach front at Vasse
Many visitors to this area remember visiting a home on the beach front at Vasse, where there was a buzzing pottery workshop. This was Happs Pottery from 1971 to 1978.

It all began when Erl decided to take up pottery as an interest while he was a young, single teacher. He was teaching at Busselton High School, and decided to take a night class given by the art teacher in pottery. When he realized the need for a wheel, he swapped over to the metal work class and made one. This he installed in the backyard of his boarding house, along with several 44 gallon drums used for making clay, and a pile of bricks for making and remaking kilns.

This is when I met him. I was impressed! What an innovative and creative fellow. Not only that, he kept a yacht in the garage of the boarding house, which he had also built. He would take all the young teachers out sailing into the never never on Geographe Bay on Friday afternoons. How romantic! And then we would listen to his classical music collection.

We became ‘good friends’, and I began to appreciate the tremendous drive to learn which was characteristic of everything Erl did. On our picnics, we would bring home clay samples to analyse. If we went to Perth, we would visit brick works, watch the brick making machines, talk to the ceramic chemists and those who fired the kilns.

Erl was fascinated with the process of clay and fire. The actual making of pots seemed to be of secondary importance. This was just as well as there were many firings when all the pots cracked or exploded. However, he gradually refined his knowledge, and after some time, began producing some good pots which needed homes. I loved making pots too and we were invited to have a small exhibition in Busselton.

We were married by now, and had built a small two-story house on the beach front at Vasse. Erl became better and better at his craft and after a while, he suggested that we put up a few shelves in the corner of the workshop/garage. There was such a demand for pots that we couldn’t keep up. As we were both teaching, we would work at the pottery on weekends and during holidays. Erl became an extremely fast and competent thrower, with a natural instinct for simple and elegant forms. He pushed the clay to its limit in terms of making light weight serviceable items. My throwing was curtailed by the time I was five months pregnant as I could no longer bend over the wheel. This was a bit of a hard time for me as I then became the one who did all the finishing off and cleaning up jobs, rather than the creative ones. However, I did use my science background to experiment with glazes which was always very exciting. We attended workshops by visiting potters such as Shigeo Shiga and read lots of books and picked a lot of brains.

We were very lucky with the site of this first pottery. We were on the end of a cul de sac and our uncle had bought the block next door. Beyond that was 10 acres of beach front bush which was not developed. We had our own track to the beach. It was a great place for children, and the neighbours didn’t complain about our non suburban activities. Nevertheless, we were outgrowing it.

The move to Commonage Rd, Dunsborough
By this stage, Erl recognized that he could support the family on the pottery alone, but he really needed a bigger workshop. Besides which, it wouldn’t be long before someone would complain. Erl was also fascinated by the beginnings of the development of the wine industry in the area, and with typical zeal, began to look 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 his gentlemanly ways. Harry recognized Erl’s zeal and energy. Both were country boys. Harry had recently acquired 60 acres that he wasn’t using and offered it to Erl. It was conditional purchase land, which Harry couldn’t sell unless it was all fenced and half cleared. Also, he could not sign it over until 1978.

Erl helped Harry to fence the land and they drew up an agreement of intention to purchase as soon as it became available. Harry was very generous regarding the price and Erl offered him an extra thousand! This is not how business is generally done today, but I think it must have been a good omen. We purchased our first Karridale block in a similar atmosphere in 1993. Erl was knocking on doors again, having given up finding anything through a real estate agent. On this particular occasion, when he knocked on the door, a few farmers were gathered about the kitchen drinking tea. The owner of that property said he was sorry, he had nothing to sell, but the neighbour, Steve, said that he was putting a part of his land up for sale in the spring. Steve turned out to be another Harry, a very friendly gentlemanly shearer come sheep farmer. He had bitten off a bit more than he could chew, shearing was down, as were sheep prices, and the bank was getting upset. We were so impressed with Steve, that we offered him a job after we bought it. Steve enjoyed planting vines for three years, and then sold the other half of the property. He made enough money to move to Bunbury where he intends to set up a Fine Wood Craft business using some of the timber he milled from his original property.

Back to 1978.
The seventies was a time of growing interest in ‘hand made’ houses. There was a fascination with the concept that one could make one’s own bricks from the earth. With his already vast knowledge of clay, it seemed natural that Erl should build in mud bricks. He found a brick making machine from an old brick works and converted it to make large mud bricks. This sounds easy, but in practice, it took about 6 months of experimentation to produce good bricks efficiently. Most people would have given up.

The garage was built with bricks that were made in traditional moulds. Once the machine was working efficiently, Erl and his off-sider, Anton Cheney, could churn out 500 bricks in a day. These were left to dry in the garage and then stacked on pallets. The 90 squares of concrete for the house and pottery were all mixed on site, and then with a team of four, the bricks were laid in a matter of about four weeks. All the door and window frames were constructed from old jarrah sleepers and various structural timbers and verandah supports from recycled telegraph poles. As Erl was experienced with building arch kilns, he incorporated a number of arch windows and doorways in the pottery. These add a great deal of charm and are especially appreciated from the courtyard garden.

If you’re a woman, you’re probably wondering by now 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 time, but also an 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 at least to some degree and I still enjoy teaching the piano very much.

The development of the Dunsborough estate.
For details of the early vineyard development, you may like to read the section on ‘Vineyards’. For the historical records, we produced our first wines in 1981. The port we made in that year won a gold medal in the Perth show, but the red wine was tipped down the drain! Erl was keen to keep the Cabernet and Shiraz in separate tanks, but was inexperienced as to how difficult it was to keep the air away from tanks which are not full. Despite the use of gas, the red wines became oxidised. Such lessons were obviously well learnt as by 1985, we won the Sheraton Award for the Best Red West Australian wine with our Merlot.

At the same time as developing the vineyard, the pottery was going from strength to strength. After all, it had to support the family, as well as the vineyard.

In the first summer that we moved to Dunsborough, I employed a lady to look after the children each morning, while I worked in the pottery. Anyone who has been a full time mother, will understand how much fun I had. At last I could create in an uninterrupted environment. My potting improved rapidly. Others began to pot seriously too. Erl’s mother and sister both had a wheel, and Lyn Foster, who was Lyn Evans then, also showed tremendous talent as a potter. We all worked together in a great team, filling up our huge oil kiln every 10 days in the Christmas holidays.

The children began to play with clay and soon became used to helping. On the days we unpacked the kiln, they would be dragged out of bed to help clean the shelves and put stickers on the pots before the customers came.

Anton Cheney, Ian Dowling, Gary Nichols and Simon James all worked here for short periods and there were other guest potters invited to share their skills such as Janet Kovesi. Kim Potter has been here since 1986. While others have come and gone, Kim has kept a steady stream of high quality pots on the shelves.

I’m always grateful that 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 out of bits of reinforcing and ‘mud bricks’. Later on, he would sit on a stool next to Anton Cheney, making little boots like Anton did on his figurines.

The other advantage of working at home if you’re a workaholic is that you can stop and eat with the family. Dinner times were always very important times for us, and wine an important part of the ‘slowing down’ process. The children still remember Erl reading ‘Lord of the Rings’ , ‘A Fortunate Life’ and other wonderful books.

The vineyard and the pottery seemed to work 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 huge concentration and devotion of time. Erl was busy expanding the winery, and Lyn and Liz had more responsibilities in looking after the vineyard and the packaging of the product. I kept going in the holidays, though I was teaching music in schools during term time. Our eldest son Myles, was now becoming a most competent thrower. He also took an interest in raku and in year 11 at school, put together an impressive display of raku pottery. He showed his father’s ability to take on something completely new, research and experiment, and not be afraid to ‘have a go’. After finishing school with a ‘Certificate of Excellence’, and a TEE score which gave him admission to science/engineering, he decided to defer and make pottery. This gave him the money to buy a motor bike and head off around Australia by himself. He was not 18 when he left. Myles was born with an adventurous spirit and a ‘happy go lucky nature’. He tried engineering for a couple of years, but decided in the end to travel to Sydney. He discovered that the distribution of Happs wines in Sydney was appalling and offered to ‘help’. Jacquie Cummins had been his girlfriend for the past four years, during which time, she had spent 18 months teaching English in Japan. They then spent 12 months apart while she completed a Diploma of Education at Notre Dame. The relationship had lasted throughout it all, so they decided to get married. Together they worked very hard to establish a presence for Happs in Sydney with very little back up from us. For three years they gave tastings, did the wine shows, and slogged around the liquor stores of Sydney, living on a shoe string. (And we loved every minute of it! Jacquie H!)

They returned home for Christmas 1998, with the third baby due in April. Myles could see that the pottery was understaffed and needed a boost, so he began making pots. He was so excited to be making pots again and it was great for the children to be near both sets of grandparents. So, they decided to stay and handed over the distribution of Happs wines in Sydney to Wayne Southwell who had been a great friend and mentor to Jacquie and Myles.

It was all meant to be as Jacquie is now central to our PR and marketing team. Her experience at the coal face has been invaluable. Tucked away in her background, she has a degree in marketing which she had never really used in a formal capacity. She is now in her element, and coping remarkably well with her inlaws.

The younger son, Jeremy, also worked as a potter for several years after leaving school. He developed a lot of new glazes, some of which are still in use. He used his savings to travel to Indonesia several times on surfing adventures. After completing one year of Fine Arts at Curtin University with several distinctions, Jeremy decided to go to India to visit his sister who was studying philosophy. He found it so interesting that he decided to stay. He knows that he is going to be an artist/philosopher, or is it philosopher/artist, but he’s not sure in which medium. The last I heard, he is intending to study Indian music before he comes home. (Before he left, he was an excellent rock guitarist!) I always tell Erl that there’s no need to worry about Jeremy because he will always make a living. When he was as young as five, he would make little pots by hand, and then follow them through, putting on the glaze, getting them into the kiln, taking them out, putting on the price and collecting the money. He has natural business acumen!

Our daughter, Suzie, has always been the ‘thinker’. She is a natural musician and won the ‘Theatre Arts Award’ for the last two years of school. Her interest in philosophy is very deep. After studying for three and a half years in India at the Vedanta Academy, she decided to marry one of her colleagues, an Indian from Durban. They are presently living in South Africa. It is most satisfying that our children are interested in helping to create a better world.