With David's return after the war, the Pottery moved into full production, leaving Leach free to pursue his own ideas. The publication of A Potter's Book in 1940 had been well received, and he undertook a series of lecture/demonstration tours of first Scandinavia and then America. His marriage to Laurie Cookes had not worked out, and he felt that he was more appreciated in the East than the West. In 1952 he returned to Japan for an extended visit, welcomed as an esteemed and venerated artist, his advice asked on issues as diverse as design, ceramics, furniture and cooking, and treated with almost god-like reverence. In Japan he became friendly with an American potter named Janet Darnell, they fell in love and were married in England in 1956.