“We all had silly names given to us. I was given Ludella Black”
What Steven asked Sarah Crouch, singer and potter
Sarah Crouch has lived on the River Medway since the 1980s, has played in multiple Medway bands, and makes pottery that travels around the world. Steven met her in her studio to discuss the pottery, her music persona and living on the river.
What is your official occupation?
I work part-time, in now the bookshop Store 104. Previously, the art shop Francis Iles because the art materials were sort of my department. I've been there for 20 years. I suppose I'm a potter. I trained at Medway College of Design in the late 70s, early 80s. It was a vocational pottery course with a higher diploma, which I passed with distinction, which is all good, but that's as far as I went with that. Since then, I've pretty much just been potting, self-reliant as a glorified hobby. I've plenty of collectors, which is great, but I certainly couldn't rely on it for a living.
Do you have any other roles, paid or unpaid?
I’m a musician as well, but that certainly doesn't make me rich and famous like some. But I love to do it, and we do get paid for what we do, but it covers pretty much our expenses.
What band are you in at the moment?
At the moment, I sing as Miss Ludella Black with The Masonics. The Masonics are my husband Mick (Hampshire), who was in The Milkshakes, with Bruce Brand, who was the drummer in The Milkshakes who's now the drummer with the Masonics and John Gibbs, who originally came from Scotland, moved down to London. He was in a band called The Kaisers, and now they're The Masonics. I do my little bit as Miss Ludella Black with The Masonics. Occasionally, I'll do a bit with Billy (Childish), but not very much these days.
What does your average day currently entail?
We live on a boat, so obviously, there's things that need doing boat wise. It's not like just getting up and turning on taps and things. In the winter, there's the fire to empty and to stoke up and lots of chores. It's a different lifestyle, which is great. If I'm at work, I'll go to work at 10, and then I'll come home, maybe pat the kiln. I love to cook in the evening, and yeah, that's pretty much it (laughs).
You're currently living on the River Medway itself. What's that like?
I can't imagine not living on the boat. I absolutely love it.
When did you first move on to the river?
Well, I was at college between ‘79 and ‘82 and first of all, we lived in a little flat in Luton Road, myself and Mick. We lived there for a year, and then he was on tour with The Milkshakes, and our landlord told us that we needed to move. Mick had always said it would be quite nice if we lived on a boat and I was looking through the Evening Post as it was in those days and I saw an advert for a boat to rent. I came down and looked at it. Mick was away, and the chap who owned it was South African, and he was very of his generation, shall we say, where he didn't want to say yes to a woman. He expected to see Mick before he could make decisions as to whether I could have it. That was what it was like. Anyway, Mick came home and said, ‘Yes, of course’, and so we moved on in 1982, thinking it would probably be a couple of years and we're still there. So, 40, 41 years.
We also had a little fishing boat to take down the river at weekends and moor up the other side of Teston. We went to Tonbridge and back, and it was lovely, but then the farmers started not liking people mooring on their land, and it became harder and harder because boats do need a lot of work. Every year, we have to do the outside. We have to do the filling and rubbing and painting, and it's really hard work. Fort Rosie was built in 1917. She was an old naval pinnace. Her superstructure was built on in 1937, and she's now a houseboat, all teak double diagonal, really beautiful. Five years ago, a bolt sheared off, and we couldn't find where it was. The wood's fine, but we couldn't find where the problem was, so we had to strip her out completely. It's just turned into a big project because things just take longer but we're quite comfortable. It's good, we do love it.
Have you always been living on the same part of the river?
Yeah. There's things that have been going on around us. It was a massive boatyard when we first moved here. There were 30 odd boats, and they had its own dry dock, and the chap who used to run the boatyard bred parrots, and it was just full of character. But probably 10 years ago we were threatened with redevelopment, and a lot of the boats decided that they wanted to move somewhere else because they were scared that we'd have to move. A lot of people moved to Medway Bridge or to Cuxton, but we were on the BBC News pretty much protesting that we wanted to stay, highlighting the wildlife. The wild birds here are beautiful, and I think they have a preservation order. We petitioned, the recession came, and the redevelopment didn't happen, so we're still here.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Local Authority to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.