WHY I COLLECT Carlton Ware money boxes

With their fun patterns and bright colours, the mid-century designs by Vivienne Brennan are immensely appealing, finds collector 

- Keeley Harris

There’s something unmistakably 1970s about Vivienne Brennan’s Carlton Ware money boxes – the psychedelic bright colours, the bold graphic design. They’re incredibly confident and ‘flower power’. I didn’t own one when I was a child, but I do feel quite nostalgic about them.

The very first I bought at a vintage fair in around 2010 – it caught my eye because it was an owl in lovely blues and purples. I didn’t care that it was a money box or that it was a piece of Carlton Ware. In fact, I thought I didn’t really like Carlton Ware. In the 1990s I used to help my dad with his stall at antiques fairs, and he was selling a lot of the 1930s Carlton Ware – lettuce leaf plates and flowery dishes. But they’re not my kind of thing at all – too pretty, too chintzy.