Life moves on. School is back and this week I’ve been getting ready for a storytelling day this next Monday at Craig Yr Hesg Primary School in Pontypridd. As well as actually doing the preparing, I’ve been thinking about what the process of preparing means to me. All working storytellers have their own approach. But this is what it’s like for me.

Mind-mapping ~

At Craig Yr Hesg, it will be stories from Wales I’ll be telling. I’ve made my usual mind-map in the style of Edward de Bono  and along its branches I’ve noted some of the possible approaches and stories that are coming into my mind as possibilities. A lot of my sense of this arises from having had a chat on the phone the other day with the person responsible for organising Monday, in this case the headmistress. Emails are all very well. But it’s a personal chat about the arrangements – when and how to get there, the programme of sessions, content of sessions, the children, the approach – that gives me that crucial and immediate sense of the school which, personally, I couldn’t manage without.

Mind-mapping ~ possible stories

So the mind-map is where I’ve marked down my thoughts about what I’m going to do on the day. They’re suggestions to myself rather than fixed expectations since, on this kind of occasion, I’m well aware, I have absolutely no need or desire to decide in advance exactly what I’m going to do. I remember learning that lesson – that it’s perfectly possible to decide on the moment – one day early on in my storytelling career.  I was on a train to the school whose headmaster was at that time Chris Brown who for so many years has given his free time to being Reviews Editor of The School Librarian. As I agonised about about which of two stories I was going to tell to Chris’s own class, it suddenly dawned upon me that, if I knew both stories well enough to be able to tell either of them, I didn’t need to decide in advance. It was an exhilarating moment of liberation!

With Classes 3 and 4 at Craig Yr Hesg (that’s the Junior end of the school), my expectation is that I’ll focus on my Shemi stories. These stories were originally created and told by the remarkable Shemi Wâd, a North Pembrokeshire storyteller from the 19th century. I retold them in my book, Shemi’s Tall Tales. Apparently Classes 3 and 4 are boy-dominated and very lively. Experience tell me they will love Shemi. He’s Welsh. He’s eccentric. He’s brilliantly funny. Besides, Class 3’s theme as term begins is Flight, so I expect they’re going to love hearing how Shemi got flown across to Ireland by seagulls and shot back to Wales from a cannon. Besides the theme allows me to talk a bit about storytellers and to explore with the children the idea that we all have stories. Some of us get told them, some of us don’t, but we all have them inside us and in the world around us. (more…)

This week, I’ve been struck by the number of Olympic athletes emphasising  that they could never have achieved what they have without the support of the team around them. Working together: that ‘s the moral and it was the theme of my story last week. This week, I’ve got another favourite Hand story with a similar theme. It’s called Five Companions and, in my experience, it works especially well with children. What gets the children is the idea that in one hand – their own hand! – there can be such a diversity of strengths and that when these are combined, there’s no end to what a hand can do. But of course there are two sides to the potential: hands can work for good or for ill. Whenever I tell the story, I try to let that  fact be seen.

Five Companions: the background

It’s not always essential for a storyteller to know where a story began. Sometimes, you hear a good story and never find out where it originated. Sometimes, as time passes, you forget where you got it. And sometimes, if you do check back with your source after many times of telling the story, you realise – as I did with Five Companions that you’ve made a few changes along the way.

The story of the Five Companions originally comes from Burma – and, to be honest, I did have to look back through my files of printed sources of stories in order to check that fact out. When I read through my copy, I immediately saw that I’d adapted the tale in one or two ways. I’d made small changes to some of the characters’ names. I’d also given more emphasis to the fact that hands can be responsible for bad deeds as well as good ones.

Five Companions: a hint on telling

Before starting the story don’t reveal that this is a story about your own hand. Let that be discovered when the story has ended. (more…)

Only a week to go. The Olympics are about to begin, London is getting ever more crowded and already it’s becoming quite a bodily skill to manoeuvre a way through the crowds. Meantime, newspapers and TV are full of the physical skills of the athletes. There’s also lots about the psychology of competing and the determination and persistence involved in increasing bodily prowess, let alone the mental skills required to stay focused and cool. It’s absorbing.

I won’t be going to the games myself. I’ll be watching on TV at home while devoting my mind to thinking about physical skills and bodily parts. For that’s my theme for the next few weeks.

I’m starting today with one of my favourite stories. I call it Five Chinese Brothers. It’s a marvellous story for adults to tell and children to hear. Like the extendable legs in the story, it somehow seems able to stretch up the age-range from children of about five years old to children of eleven or twelve. And as you’ll see when you read the story, extendable legs are just one of the story’s magical powers. But first, here’s a bit of background about how I first came to hear this tale.

Five Chinese Brothers – some background

I first heard the story from Beulah Candappa, the inspirational storyteller from Burma who was one of the first full-time storytellers I got to know in London during the 1980s when storytelling as an art was reviving.

Beulah was the daughter of a headteacher and chieftain. She’d turned from teaching to full-time storytelling because she so strongly believed in the necessity for people to have stories. Stories had been part of her own life since childhood. She was generous in the way she shared them. Always calm and serene in her manner, she would carry with her baskets of fascinating folk objects and set these out in the course of her tellings, creating a wonderful theatre of the imagination.

Beulah has influenced me a lot. Once in a conversation on the phone, she memorably described storytelling to me as ‘the art of time and silence’. And when she wrote a piece for the booklet that accompanied By Word of Mouth, my Channel 4 TV series on storytelling that was shown in 1990, it was enticingly entitled, A Crackle of Excitement.

That’s Beulah – a wonderful combination of quiet serenity and an electric buzz of excitement. I think of her whenever I think of this tale, which I’ve probably adapted in various ways in the course of dozens of tellings over the years.

Five Chinese Brothers – the story (more…)

Making up stories is something many people are nervous of doing. Yet, as I hope my blogs over the last few weeks have demonstrated, there are lots of painless ways to practise. And anyway, what does it matter if your story isn’t the best that’s ever been created? The fun lies in the doing. And the doing teaches you an awful lot about the way stories work. 

Story Cards

This week I’m writing about story cards as a beguiling way to play with stories. (more…)

Is it just me? When I’m going on walks, I’m always childishly delighted when I spot a face or an animal shape in a rock or a tree. It’s like playing The Transformation Game, only in the landscape.

The Transformation Game

This storytelling game arose from my fondness for objects – plus the fact that, on a visit to Bruges, I’d acquired a double-lidded basket in a Sunday market. It became enormous fun to ply this basket with unusual objects, then play The Transformation Game with different suitable groups.

The Basic Plan:

As the facilitator, you first point out that you’ve got a double-lidded basket and that, inside, there are some interesting items.

Then you ask for a volunteer to come forward and choose which lid of the basket to open. Of course, both lids open onto the same inside but it’s a bit of fun to pretend that the choice is real.

Now you ask your volunteer to feel around in the basket and, not looking at what’s inside, to pull out an object of his or her choice. And of course, if it’s children you’re working with, they’re going to enjoy tittering about the possible things they might feel – a living snake or a real eye. (more…)

Next Saturday’s blog will start a new series. So far, I haven’t decided the subject. Anything you’d like to see? Please jot a note in the Comment box at the end of this blog and I’ll try to respond.

Next Thursday, March 1st, it’s going to be World Book Day, St David’s Day and my next WIPs meeting all on the same day. World Book Day speaks for itself – a day to celebrate the book, it’s usually a busy one for authors and storytellers. St David’s Day, in case you don’t know already, is the national day of Wales. It marks the death of our Patron Saint. As for WIPs, that’s a group of us who meet every couple of months to present something creative we’ve each been working on. Among us are singers, pianists, an oboe player, writers, a composer of music and a sculptor. Next Thursday, I’m planning to do a story set in Wales.

Here meantime is another Welsh story, the last in my series for younger children and an ideal story for telling next week.

The Door In The Mountain

Once there was a girl who loved singing and running. One day when she was playing hide and seek with her friends, she ran away from the rest to look for a place to hide and came across a door in the mountain. The door was ajar and she went inBehind the door was a tunnel and at the end of the tunnel was sunlight. So Betsy Bankhouse – for that was her name – crept through the tunnel until she came out on the other side and there she discovered she was in a new world that she’d never seen before.

As she looked round, Betsy saw a big blue lake and in the middle of the lake she saw an island. She desperately wanted to go there and when she got down to the edge of the lake, she saw exactly what she needed. It was a boat.

So Betsy got in and rowed that boat across the water till she came to the island. As she started climbing out, she noticed there were lots of little people looking out at her from the reeds. They said, ‘Welcome to our island, Betsy Bank-house.’ ‘That’s funny,’ thought Betsy, ‘how did they know my name?’ (more…)

This week’s story is another of my favourites. It’s for the upper age-range of younger children, not the very young ones. (See my comments at the end of the blog.) 

Mr and Mrs Hak-Tak

Mr and Mrs Hak-Tak were very poor. They didn’t have much of anything at all – not much food, not much money, not much time to rest. They both used to work very hard.

One day, Mr Hak-Tak was digging over the piece of land where he always grew his vegetables. Suddenly, his spade hit something hard in the earth. He heard it! CLANG!

‘That’s funny,’ said Mr Hak-Tak. ‘I’ve dug this ground a lot of times. But I’ve never heard a clang before.’

Mr Hak-Tak was VERY puzzled. He dug down until he discovered what had made the noise. He dug it out. It was a big metal pot – a VERY big metal pot.

‘That’s strange,’ said Mr Hak-Tak. ‘I’ll take it home to show Mrs Hak-Tak.’

But when Mr Hak-Tak picked up the pot, he couldn’t hold it at the same time as his purse. So he put the pot down, put his purse inside it, then picked up the pot and carried it home.

Mrs Hak-Tak was astonished. ‘Where did you get that pot?’ she said. When Mr Hak-Tak explained, she was even more surprised. ‘Well, it looks like a very nice pot,’ she said. ‘It could come in useful. So I’ll give it a clean.’

It was when Mrs Hak-Tak started cleaning the pot that she noticed Mr Hak-Tak’s purse inside it. ‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘I put it there to carry it home. I’ll take it out.’

But when Mrs Hak-Tak went back to the pot, she couldn’t quite believe her eyes. Inside was Mr Hak-Tak’s purse! (more…)

Little Bear In The Snow

Here’s the story (as specially improvised for a snowy week):

Little Bear loved going out. One morning he woke up and looked out of the window and saw that everywhere was covered in snow.

Little Bear was very excited. He told his Mummy, ‘I’m going out.’ So he put on his boots, his hat and his gloves and off he went. (His Mummy watched him, of course.)

First he scrunched down the path leaving great big footprints in the snow. And when he got to the gate, he saw the long road in front of him all covered with snow.

Little Bear loved going along the long road. So he went through the gate and started to run. First he scrunched his way to the hill. In the snow, it looked all white and shining. He couldn’t wait to get to the top. And when he did, do you know what he saw?

His own toboggan! Someone had left his toboggan on top of the hill. So Little Bear got on it and slid down the hill. WHEE-EE-EE!

At the bottom of the hill, he carried on stomping through the snow – SCRUNCH! SCRUNCH! SCRUNCH! – until he came to the river. He was excited to see that the river was all frozen over with ice. So do you know what he did? Little Bear slid across it – WHOOSH!

And when he came to the other side, he carried on SCRUNCH! SCRUNCH! – till he came to the end of the road. And when he looked down, do you know what he saw? (more…)

The Elves and the Shoemaker

My choice as the first story in this series is one you probably know – The Elves and the Shoemaker. To illustrate it and the points that come after, I’ve selected some random pictures of shoes from my photo archive along with a couple I’ve taken this week.

Here’s the story: 

A poor shoemaker was down on his luck. He had only enough leather left in his workshop to make one final pair of shoes. He didn’t know how he and his wife would survive after that. But before going to bed, he cut out the leather thinking he would sew that last pair of shoes in the morning.

That night, while the shoemaker and his wife were in bed, two naked elves came to the shoemaker’s workshop and sewed and finished the pair of shoes.

In the morning, the shoemaker was almost speechless. WHO could POSSIBLY have made the shoes? And they were SO beautifully made, not a stitch was out of place. When a customer came into his shop that morning, he definitely wanted those shoes – and paid a lot of money for them. So now the shoemaker had enough money to buy leather for TWO pairs of shoes. (more…)

Thinking about how you present a story can really help your memory of it. Props, rhythms, sounds, actions – this blog has talked about all these before. On the right, for instance, is my sea-tray which I featured in The Magic of Objects. But thinking about memory gives a timely prompt for thinking about such things again. Also useful is beginning to think about how different stories relate to each other. All over this earth, in every culture past and present,  are stories with similar themes. Developing an awareness of the relationships between them – what’s similar, what’s different – helps with an awareness of story in general. It develops the memory muscles. And that’s what storytelling is all about – developing your muscles as a storyteller so as to feel confident about sharing your stories and giving your listeners the pleasure of them too. It’s not work that ever ends. But as you go on, the process becomes part of the way that you think.

1. Developing effective presentation

Developing your thoughts about how to present your story can really help you as the storyteller. Decisions about presentation help embed your memory of what you are going to tell. For instance,  it’s important to pay attention to how your story will sound and where you may add good sound-effects. This applies whether your story is destined for adults or children. Refrains where appropriate can also add texture and help your audience to follow the direction the story is taking.

Another possibility if you’re telling to children is to introduce the story with some kind of game that not only relates to the story but encourages visualisation. (more…)