The lid is like something from a Vincent Price movie--and there is a
great deal of room for improvement. It is a 29 brick plug, with 5-16"
threaded reds running through it so to stiffen it. This plug is inserted
in another 12 brick ring. Three lifting hooks and a block and tackl:
raise and lower it. This structure could be simplified.

The kiln worked--it fired to cone 4, not just once but many times. It
was not expensive to operate and I soon found that it would reach cone
8 on five elements only. Then Charmian Johnson and Gathie Falk
built a gas kiln in the same garage. Now my kiln is their bisquit kiln,
its life has been extended indefinitely as cone 08 is well within the
elements' reach whereas cone 8 was close to their limits.

Mistakes are things to learn from and sometimes with the addition of
a few years become something which can be remembered in passing
and then laughed or wept at and forgotten. Of course, I met the man
who had the answers to my questions - and more - only after the kiln
was built. He told me never to let steel touch elements, wind them on
wood, wash elements with detergent after handling them to remove
sweaty fingermarks which cause corrosion, install elemente wearing
gloves, double twist terminals, always look at the firebricks you buy
through a magnifying glass. David Lambert told me that, he is an
expert on kiln building, and other things.

Gillian Hodge sends the following letter about her visit to England.
Even though she has been back for a few months, and many members
will have heard her tell about her adventures, I am sure that this
lively reminiscence will be of interest. (Ed.)

England, I'm glad to report, is still around; despite the world's
most lethal traffic and the shortest mini skirts - any young man
wishing to study should travel now.

The Henry Moore retrospective - though not, I suppose,
relevant here - is an experience of a lifetime. No photograph
gives an adequate impression of the presence, the gravity,