Nick grew up in and around the village of Aldermaston, Berkshire, fifty miles from London.  His father, Alan, gave him some early instruction in throwing on the potter's wheel, in the pottery workshops that he set up in 1955 and which over many years became a training ground for potters from all over the world.   Nick began making ceramics professionally in 1997 during a break in a corporate career in banking and industry.   His first exhibitions of lustre ceramics, during 1998, were enthusiastically received.   They were followed by others in various locations across the UK.   (See Exhibitions.)  His work conserves and builds on lustre techniques developed at Aldermaston from the 1960s onwards, derived from techniques that first emerged in the Middle East over 1,000 years ago. Nick and his wife Jane, from New South Wales, have four children at school and university.