What next? Ever ask yourself that question? I often do and this is because it often feels like there’s too much to do. Worse, it sometimes feels as if between all the things I’d like to do and the things I’ve got to do, the things I’d like to do get so far pushed to the back that they don’t get done at all.

Now, though, things are changing. After what seems like forever dealing with health issues, treatment for my fourth episode of cancer has come to an end and, for the moment anyway, I feel quite free.

So will it be writing more fictional stories as in my most recent book, The Uses of ‘a’? Or will it be continuing a kind of memoir of my storytelling life that I started and then left aside,  a book provisionally entitled A Storyteller’s Tale?  And what about Animal Antics, another project I conceived (and actually drafted out)  a little while ago?

Animal Antics is an animal alphabet, an A-Z of stories for children in the 8 to 12 age-range. This week, I took the step of asking Sarah Williams, a brilliant young artist friend of mine in Pembrokeshire,  if she would consider doing the illustrations for these stories. Hurray, she has said yes and has already started on them. Soon we’ll have a fine proposal to put to a publisher. And the next adventure will be finding one! (more…)

Quite a lot of years ago, I wrote a set of children’s stories. I called them The Tiger-Mouse Tales. Each of three main characters had its own story. The tiger-mouse was an enchanting creature that could turn itself into a tiger when it wanted or needed to do so or, equally, turn back to a mouse. The blue flamingo was a beautiful bird, tall, quiet and very serene. The sea-ling was an academic busy-body of a bird, very talkative and with plenty to say. He looked like he wore a black gown as my headmaster father used to do in school.

These three creatures, the tiger-mouse, the blue flamingo and the sea-ling, had literally appeared to me in a dream. It was because I was so fascinated by them that I wrote that set of stories about them, printed them out and gave copies to various children I knew. But I never did anything else with them.

This week, the stories have returned to my mind. They did so because, the other day, my cousin on my mother’s side of the family asked me about the grandfather we have in common. Neither of us had consciously ever met him. But I was delighted to tell her what I knew of him from my mother for he always sounded to me like a delightful man. He was Scottish, he grew up in Oban on the West coast of Scotland and, like his father before him, he became a journalist renowned for the speed and clarity of his shorthand. The long latter part of his working life was spent working on the Pembrokeshire newspaper, the Western Telegraph. (more…)

Pinch, punch, first of the month – and no return!

It’s what we used to say when kids, the first two words accompanied by the corresponding actions of pinching and punching (but not too hard!). The final words, ‘and no return’, were the warning to the person you were speaking to. They had to be taken seriously: your friend mustn’t do the rhyme back. At their peril!

Oh, the things we said as children. ‘Daresie’ was another – except how on earth do you write that word down?

Daresie, daresy? It was the challenge. Dare you to jump in that pond (where there might be monsters lurking in the depths waiting to come up and bite you). Dare you to jump off the quay (even though the tide is too low and you might find yourself bashing the bottom). Dare you to go and tell teacher what that naughty boy just said. Dare you to give him a kiss. (more…)

Being on cancer treatment makes for a kind of half-life. Getting to the hospital, sitting through the chemo transfusion (typically for me about eight hours from sitting down to getting out), feeling strange for several days afterwards with not much else going on because of the after- effects. Sometimes getting up much earlier than usual, sometimes very much later and rarely going out in the evenings because of generally feeling knackered.

Brightening things up:

But always there are kind contacts from friends and neighbours, phone calls and cards with enquiries as to how it’s all going and many messages of goodwill. In the odd way that illness produces, there’s even the brightening of relationships with some long-term neighbours in the street. Never before on particular talking terms,  having learned what’s going on, they now always enquire how things are going.

Meantime, you’re looking for more ways to make life feel brighter. Crosswords and word wheels are good, but I find they can only last a relatively short time. Reading is a must but you need other things too.

Missing the storytelling:

And I miss the storytelling. I ask myself if it will ever come back. Programmes of stories begin to form in my mind, stories for children, stories for adults, ideas of stories I’d like to tell and how I’d like to tell them. Short ones, long ones, quirky ones, ones that have happened in my own real life: they present themselves to my attention, swirling out from choppy seas or clouds of mist and wanting to get acknowledged. Writing them down is one thing. Telling them is quite another. I hope I’ll get or make the chance to be telling them again.

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Ten days of summer down in Pembrokeshire make a very welcome break before the next horrid chemo. I’ve been admiring colour – the orange-red of the poppy that has cropped itself up in the gravel at the back of the house, the purple of the foxgloves like sentinels in the hedges.

Colour is appetising. It makes you look and it makes you savour. Thinking about it has reminded me of a little story I once made up which has also been one I’ve told many times.

The Yellow Blob

The Yellow Blob lived in a world where everything was yellow. Yellow house, yellow grass, yellow fields, yellow sea. One day, the Yellow Blob went for a walk. He closed his yellow door, walked along the yellow brick  road and climbed up the yellow hill. At the top of the hill, he looked down. The Yellow Blob was very surprised. At the bottom of the hill was a huge blue lake. (more…)

So here I am, thinking about props and the usefulness of them. Props attract attention, they hold attention. Interesting objects, puppets, dolls together with fascinating bags and boxes: all can be part of the art of the storyteller. Last week, I wrote about the single object that may set the scene for a story. But a set of objects can also be good as well as fun to put together.

A set of objects sets the scene in a different way. It reflects the fact that there will be different scenes in the story and is very helpful for younger children. Showing the objects one by one before the story begins gives them an initial sense that the story will progress through different scenes. Then showing them again at the end is a great way to remind them of the story. Perhaps you do this as you put the props away in the bag or box from which they’ve emerged. (more…)

You know what it’s like. You’re vaguely expecting something to happen. Then suddenly it arrives and you’re surprised and delighted. In my case, it occurred yesterday morning when onto my doormat fell something a little  larger and heavier than the usual letter – not that many actual letters arrive any more. What comes are bills, oh yes the bills! And also of course endless advertisements for this or that.

What the post brought:

But this was the most delightful little book. It’s entitled Bringing Hope, the story in it was written by myself and, yes, I was expecting it to arrive sometime around now. But when I saw it, what proved an absolute delight was the illustrations, all bursting with colour and texture and all produced by pupils of two schools in South London, Reay and Wyvil Primary Schools. (more…)

Yesterday morning, I did a story session for 12 children and their teachers from two North Lambeth schools. The event was organised by ADD (Action Aid for Disability) which is a charity I support. The children had been chosen for their artistic ability. What they did in the session yesterday was designed to  contribute to a book.

How things grow! It reminds me of a favourite riddle of mine. The question asks: What’s the definition of an acorn? And the answer? An oak tree in a nutshell.

The story begins:

I remember that the first personal contribution I made to the work of ADD came after a visit I made to their offices when I was shown an inspirational video in which a man called Peter Ogik (I’ve mentioned him before in this blog) talked about his life. Peter was born with albinism. Growing up in Uganda, his life had been very hard. In Uganda, people with albinism are harassed, cursed and sometimes killed. But Peter’s father had always inspired him to be brave. He’d always told him  he was ‘special’. (more…)