2024 marks Michael James Hunter’s 50 years in glass-making. I started work at the Wedgwood Glass factory in mid-June of 1974, my job title was “Boy”. No female workers were working on the hot side back then at Wedgwood and possibly none at all the other glass-making factories. I don’t know why, maybe it was simply a sign of those times.

How times have changed, there are possibly more women working hot glass now than men, and so they should. There are some great female artists out there, “Toots” Zinsky is our favourite.

Anyway, I moved up the ladder and became a stemware blower. I left Wedgwood to work in a new crystal factory in Mid-Wales, it was here that I was given the title “Master” and “chaired” a team. Eventually, I was put in the position of hot-side manager in charge of the glass workers and stokers. The factory was overrun with problems however, it could have worked, should have worked if the original owners knew what they were doing. But it simply became a pawn in a much bigger game that saw its closure.

We move to Scotland. I work as the production maker in charge of training the assistant. The work was easy, too easy, their designs became boring, and I was afraid of losing my skills. So I made plans to start up my glass-making studio, Twists Glass Studio which was founded in 1998.

I made the glasses in 1981 at Wedgwood, and the cameo engraved plate at the studio I worked at in Scotland 1997.