[6] At the time, potter Yvonne Rust was teaching art at Greymouth High School, and offered to run a course training miners in pottery techniques to help them learn a new trade and form a collective; she advertised with a notice on the wall of the newly built mine bathhouse.

[7] Rust called on her colleague Roger Ewer to move back to the West Coast and set up facilities for training 40 miners, but by the time he arrived all but nine of the unemployed men had decamped to Christchurch in search of work.

[9] He was developing a distinct style, creating his own glazes with bone ash to impart a golden colour, and decorating the pots with fancy scrolls and hieroglyphic-like markings.

A tall blue-white urn of his, displayed at Peter Sinclair's Auckland gallery, was presented to Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Robert Runcie during a New Zealand visit.

[5] Browning became increasingly successful, running his pottery studio for 11 years and producing thousands of cups, teapots, and casserole dishes, as well as larger urns and vases sold through craft shops.