By Martha De Lacey PUBLISHED: 03:45 EST, 24 April 2013 | UPDATED: 09:50 EST, 24 April 2013 Emma Bridgewater at home in Oxford Quintessentially British pottery designer Emma Bridgewater has revealed how in her darkest moments - following the horse-riding accident that left her mother severely brain-damaged aged 53 - she would go to the cinema alone and drink neat vodka to numb the pain. The mother-of-four, whose pretty polka-dot teapots and plates speckled with little pink hearts are stocked in middle class kitchens all over the country, says she used the fiction of film and theatre as an escape.
@highlight
Her Stoke-on-Trent-based company was founded in 1985
@highlight
Turned over £30,000 in first year, and in 2011 figure reached £15m
@highlight
There are now 265 staff, making 25,000 hand-decorated items every wee
@highlight
Mother had accident aged 53 and now lives in care
@highlight
'Mum is still alive, so I can't mourn her - but I want to explain her'
@placeholder's influence is very pervasive; strangely, probably more in the business than in my family life.