This week I’ve been preparing for a Storytelling evening I’ll be giving in Llangollen on 10th October.  The event is for the Story Circle regularly organised there by storyteller Fiona Collins . My preparations for it feel a bit like the gardening I’ve also been doing in my garden this week. A garden takes time and effort to make and time and effort to maintain. When it’s going right, it gives great pleasure.

From the Land of the Magic

My Llangollen programme is a new one – From the Land of the Magic. The title comes from the Welsh, gwlad yr hud, which is a phrase that has been applied to Penfro, Pembrokeshire, the part of Wales I come from. The light there really is magic. It’s no surprise to me that so many Pembrokeshire stories reflect its enchanting effects.  

My stories for Llangollen will include some smaller ones I’ve often told before as well as one big one I’ve told before but not often, namely the story of Manawyddan which comprises the Third Branch of the early Welsh cycle of  stories, the Mabinogion. I feel this ancient story is extremely relevant to our world today dealing as it does with how to bring a halt to the incessant taking of vengeance.

As for the work of preparing my overall programme, I’ve adopted my normal technique – Mind-Mapping.  Mind-Maps are what work for me. They prompt  me to remember what stories I know, bring them into  fresh focus and enable me to create new programmes and themes. So, how to do it?

Making a Mind-Map (more…)

Round the campfire? In the caravan? Here’s a good story to tell. I came across it this week while sorting and clearing old papers. As usual with tales that get briefly reported in old guide-books and magazines, the story had no title. The only identifying feature was that it took place on the island of Mull. I’ll call it Late Encounters.

Late Encounters

Late one moonlit evening, a hiker was walking through woods on his way back to his digs. The hike had taken him further than he’d calculated and it had got much later than he’d intended. Suddenly, out of the shadows ran a dog. The dog came straight up to him wagging its tail and lifting its head towards him, obviously wanting to be stroked. The dog was an old collie dog. The hiker had no fear of it and when he eventually began walking on, he even began to wonder if the dog would come with him as some dogs do when you come across them in the countryside. So he couldn’t help feeling disappointed when, as suddenly as  he’d arrived, the dog ran off back into the woods without so much as a backward glance.

‘Strange,’ thought the hiker as he went on his way. But about half a mile further on, it felt even more strange when he heard sounds of something  approaching. He hoped it might be the dog. No, it was a man, an old man, as friendly-looking as the dog had been.

‘ Goo’night,’ said the man. ‘Out late?’ ‘Yes,’ said the hiker. ‘Misjudged the path. Got to get back to my lodgings.’ ‘Well never mind,’ the old man said, ‘it’s a good night for walking by any account.’ ‘Strange thing, though,’ said the hiker. ‘I met someone else just now – well, not a person, a dog, very friendly.’ ‘A  dog?’ said the old man. ‘What was he like exactly?’ (more…)

It’s summer-time and time for fun. Last week it was The Flea’s Adventure. This week, it’s The Captain’s T-shirt, another ‘doing’ story that children adore and for which I have to thank brilliant storyteller, Sally Tonge, who first showed me how to do it. Plus, thanks to another great storyteller, Karen Tovell, today’s delights include The Magic Jumping Flea Trick, an excellent device to intrigue and enrapture children which she sent in during the week in response to last week’s story.  (more…)

“The world is very beautiful and it’s very sad I will have to die.” So said the grandmother of José Saramago whose house on Lanzarote we recently went to see. The grandmother was very old when she said that to him and he was still a child. I feel I know what she meant for this week, down in Wales, the hedgerows, the sky, the bird-song, the bluebells – all have been so beautiful, I can’t bear the thought of ever leaving them.

Tears

Tears are close to laughter and they’ve both been present several times in recent days. Tears were there after the Memorial Service to our friend Simon Hoggart in which the whole gathered throng were kept constantly laughing by the many tributes to him, all in some way or other recalling his sense of humour.

Tears have been there too on hearing about the illness of a number of friends. Yet, as I said, tears and laughter often come close together. Two people have remarked on this to me in the last few days. One was speaking in general about storytelling when he said, “If you can get them laughing at the beginning, you can get them crying at the end.” Then a member of the Welsh class in St David’s which had invited me to go and talk to them about storytelling this last Wednesday made a similar point with a vivid personal recollection. In Botswana back in the mid-60s, he said, people in the place where he was living would gather every Friday evening beneath a very big tree (same tree each week) and they’d listen to the storyteller (same storyteller each week, a man who wore a jacket with many medals on it). At first, they’d be uproariously laughing. By the end, they’d often be weeping. (more…)

Last week, I was so chilled out – or rather, so warm and relaxed – on holiday on the island of Lanzarote, that I felt I had nothing to say. By today, I’m positively burning to go on about the value of personal links. After all, we’ve all got them in one form or another.

Good days, personal links:

One of our best days on Lanzarote involved a visit to an astonishing Cactus Garden. Another was a pilgrimage to the house of José Saramago, the Portuguese writer and Nobel Prize Winner who spent the last 18 years of his life on the island. Both days arose because of personal links, the first because, back here in London, my husband has an amazing collection of cactuses, the second because a very good friend of mine was Saramago’s English translator and, because of her, we have read his books.

Personal links create that extra degree of interest which can make you bother to take journeys, actual and symbolic. I became doubly aware of the truth of that this week when my main task and pleasure has lain in preparing the talk I’m to give next Monday to the Historical Society in St David’s. The society was founded by my father and the link with him is one reason for my sense of anticipation.

Shemi the storyteller (more…)

A girl pushes her fingers down the back of the rear seat of an abandoned Renault car in the scrapyard near her home. As she exlores the hole her fingers have found, she feels the hard-edged corner of what is surely a box. Determined to get it out, whatever it is, she returns to the scrapyard a day or two later. This time, she succeeds. She sees that the top of the box is covered with fabric which could be Indian or Chinese and inside, when she opens it, she finds a shining glass figurine of what looks like an elephant man. The elephant man will turn out to be a statuette of Ganesh, the Hindu god. But even before the girl finds that out, her questions have begun.

Questions on World Book Day:

At Ysgol Dafydd Llwyd in Newtown, Powys, on World Book Day this week, the children were brilliant at thinking what those questions might be. How had the box got down the back of the seat? Who put it there? Why? Who did it belong to? What might the figure be worth? How old could it be? Where was it made? Did it have any special significance? How much might you get if you put it on eBay? How long had it been in the Renault? Could you trace its rightful owner?

Ysgol Dafydd Llwyd: (more…)

It’s one thing to make sounds while you’re telling a story. Relishing them is quite another and it’s something children really respond to – so much so that it’s my tip this week for getting participation.

What happens when a really good sound comes from the storyteller’s mouth – the hoot of an owl for instance – is that it attracts children’s attention. You can almost see their ears prick up. A good sound is different both from the normal level of talk and the rebukes and instructions so often administered to children.

Cow mooing, monkey chattering, tap dripping, wind whooshing – such sounds make all the difference. They make children sit up and pay attention. But that’s not all. Interesting sounds inspire them to copy. (more…)

A strategy I’ve found useful in my storyteller’s life is to look ahead over any upcoming batch of engagements and then start planning the last one first. This helps avoid panic (it also works well for ordinary life events). What’s more important, it helps generate thoughts. What stories will I do? What approach will I take?

Equally vital for me is the fact that my strategy helps make me alert to what’s going on at any one time. What experiences have I recently had that may be worth remembering to help contextualise a story in the future? What themes that are topical today or tomorrow could still be of interest then?

Looking at the diary

So looking at my diary at the start of this year, I’m already looking ahead to a session I’ll be doing in Luton quite a lot later this term. It’ll be a two-part engagement. During the day, sessions with Early Years children, their teachers present and observing. After school, a big session with the staff from the school plus Early Years staff from other centres in the area. (more…)

Monsters make an excellent theme for developing children’s creativity. Monsters appeal to young people – there’s something essentially subversive in both.

So whether you’re a parent, teacher or children’s club leader – and whatever the age of the children you work with – you can get a lot out of monsters.

Here’s a programme for pursuing a Monsters theme:

• Find one or two good monster stories – for instance the Greek story of Typhon with older children 

• Prepare the stories for telling, then tell them to your children, be they in class, at home or in some kind of children’s club

• Allow time for the children to come up with comments and questions (in class or clubs, working in pairs or groups is best)

• Ask the children to suggest some modern-day monsters – you might be impressed by their ideas – and make a list of the monsters

• Invite them to draw, paint or make models of the monsters they’ve thought of (this gives them useful thinking time)

• Give them the time to make up a story about their particular monster (working in groups is best in a class)

• Get them to tell their story (each group can tell in turn to the others)

Fantastic!

This whole enterprise could take a full morning or evening session or be spread out over several sessions. (more…)

Between 4 and 5 p.m. on Saturday 5th October, I’ll be giving a performance at the London Welsh Centre. My session is part of the London Welsh Literature Festival, three days of Welsh culture with poetry, fiction, music, drama and talks as well as my storytelling.

My preparations have made me think about what revisiting a sequence of stories involves. Do come along! See booking details below.

Travels With My Welsh Aunt

Travels With My Welsh Aunt was the first whole-evening, one-woman show that I did. Actually, it wasn’t quite a one-woman show: the storytelling all came from me, but there were points where singing welled up from the audience from some of my fellow-members of the London Welsh Chorale, the choir in which I sing. Of course, this had been prepared. I’d asked them if they’d be willing to participate and their apparently spontaneous joining-in with some hymns and songs added greatly to the evening’s atmosphere. It added too to my theme. For my Aunty Mali, on whom Travels With My Welsh Aunt is based, was a notable music teacher also well known for her conducting of hymn-singing Cymanfa Ganu festivals in Wales long before it was normal for a woman to be seen in that role.

Travels With My Welsh Aunt first got performed in full in 1999. (I’d previously done a pilot at Festival at the Edge.)

Revisiting it now on October 5th, it’s going to feel very different. For a start, it will be up in the bar at the London Welsh Centre and not in the main hall so less formal. Also, the piece will be shorter. Back in 1999, as on subsequent occasions in Village Halls and other venues , it consisted of two halves, each of about three-quarters of an hour. This time, it will last an hour.

Besides, I’ll be returning to a piece that has lived in my mind for a long time since I first brought my conception of it into being. So I’ve been thinking a lot this week about what happens when a storyteller revisits a favourite story or stories. Of course, it’s something storytellers do frequently. You have stories you love: you retell them and, in the process, you observe how much they’ve changed or stayed the same as the last time. You also become highly aware of how venues, the weather, season and different audiences affect the telling. However, specifically setting out to revisit a whole series of stories in a piece that’s especially important to you – well, maybe that involves a process all of its own. (more…)