Elizabeth Longrigg has been living in Oxford, raising her five children and teaching undergraduates Anglo-Saxon, Middle English and History of the English Language, since she graduated from the university “a very long time ago.”

She taught Philip Pullman, Tina Brown and Val McDermid among many others, interviewed Martin Amis and shared a room with William Boyd.

But she has only just got round to publishing a novel of her own, The Oxford Pot.

This is not her first book, but she always considered her earlier ones rather unsuitable for her children and grandchildren to read and they’ve stayed hidden.

Originally from New Zealand, but having lived here all her married life, Elizabeth considers herself in a good position to view English society objectively.

She finds its foibles, views on class, foreigners and particularly what its older members still term ‘colonials’, always interesting, amusing and certainly worthy of comment.

Elizabeth’s experience of life in England is by no means narrow. She has worked in a Lyons café, been a magistrate on adult, youth and family courts and on the licensing committee; a Tax Commissioner and served on the Board of Visitors of a prison— as well as the only woman on the national executive of CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale.

When appointed a magistrate, the Oxford Times reported the news under the heading: Real Ale Enthusiast becomes Magistrate.

The Oxford Pot is about a potter, not about cannabis. Elizabeth has a potter daughter and son-in-law, and while they do not figure in the book in person, play a part in the original inspiration.

Years spent in the dining halls and Senior Common Rooms of Oxford colleges have also provided valid material for authentic settings and social satire.

Robert Taylor, the don who falls in love with Cassandra, has a variety of colleagues who figure variously in often satirical scenes.

Elizabeth describes her book as ‘a comic novel with a heart’: “I wrote the book because I enjoyed doing it and the characters seemed to take over.

“They weren’t so much ‘in search of an author’ as having already found one. They refused to let me alone until I’d put them on paper—albeit via a laptop.

“It took a while because I nearly went blind for a time, but mercifully I can now read and write and my computer skills are as good as they’ve ever been, which is not very good but just about adequate.”

The plot then, features Cassandra, a penniless young woman potter, and her mother Melissa, deserted by her bankrupt husband, and living precariously in darkest Devon when they unexpectedly inherit an almost-stately-home in Oxfordshire.

They move there and Melissa contrives means of making a living, selling her daughter’s pots in Oxford’s open market.

These include replicas of 18th century women’s pee pots which attracts considerable attention, not only from a large and mainly male audience but from the police and the local press.

Dons from a nearby Oxford College are by no means immune to this attraction and one of them falls in love with Cassandra. Thereby hang several tales.

Melissa also contrives to contact some rich local residents who are kinsfolk of her vanished husband and cleverly enlists their aid in improving the inherited almost stately but decidedly decayed house to a state compatible with letting rooms to paying guests.

One of these is a particularly attractive young man whom Melissa immediately considers an excellent marriage prospect for her daughter, but both have other ideas.

Other guests provide a rich mix of attitudes to class, religion and the culture and language of other countries.

“The people are imaginary, but their attitudes, ideas and idioms are based on a long lifetime of varied experiences and of contact with an immensely wide variety of people,” Elizabeth concludes sagely.

Author signing at St Giles’ church, Woodstock Road, this Sunday from 11.30am, and Authors’ Corner at the Dragon Christmas Charity Sale in Summertown on Saturday December 15.

The paperback is £10.99 available on Amazon; the Kindle version is £3.50.