Monday evening saw a celebration of  Harold Rosen, the inspiring educationist who passed away in 2008. Harold Rosen was unique. His wit was dry, his language succinct. He spoke the truth as he saw it. He did not appease. At an important debate in the Society for Storytelling in its earlier days , the question at issue was whether the Society should exclusively support the traditional tale or whether it should also represent other forms of story such as the personal tale or the written story. Speeches were impassioned – I made one myself. Then Harold stood up. Both as an eminent educationist and as a respected Patron of the SfS, what he was about to say felt extremely important. What he did say was brief. At its centre was the pungent point that the desire to establish boundaries usually arises ‘from those that wish to patrol them’.

End of story. The truth in Harold’s remark was clear as daylight. Thinking about it anew this week, the question it addresses feels extremely apt for our world right now. As Donald Trump plans physical boundaries against Mexican immigration and paper walls against Muslims, the question is going to remain critically important. In this day and age, does America really want to be patrolled? Does it want to be patrolled by Trump and his chaotic team? But Harold Rosen’s thinking forms an equally pertinent and powerful challenge to much current educational and social strategy here in the UK. The value now given to league tables and targets, the stifling emphasis on exam success, the narrowing effect of these viewpoints on what and how children are taught: all these would have been anathema to Harold Rosen. (more…)

People who’ve been reading A Long Run in Short Shorts have been sending me lovely comments. Many have noticed how I love coincidences. And they’re right. I do. I’ve been thinking a lot about why. One reason, I’m sure, is that they simply bring pleasure. ‘How amazing is that,’ we say and, suddenly, it feels like the universe isn’t completely chaotic or random (which it certainly isn’t as any physicist will point out). More than that, as one friend put it only this morning on the phone, ‘it makes you feel like there’s a little connecting network in life that pulls us together.’

So it’s what they mean to you that matters. For me, the pleasure and surprise they bring leads, I hope, to a deeper awareness of what I value in life. In this connection, what follows are two tales where coincidence is important. One is a West African folktale – I’ve mentioned it before so I’ll make my retelling  brief. The other is an incident that happened to me in Cardiff last week.

The Three Brothers – a West African folktale

One by one, three brothers receive from their father the money he has kept for them. Each in turn goes off to see the world. Each in turn buys something of great interest to him. Then, after a time, they all decide to head back home. Amazing! It seems that entirely by chance, the three of them meet at a crossroads.

Now what happens? Each shows the others that object of great interest which he has bought in the course of his travels. The objects are a telescope, a prayer mat and a ritual whisk of the kind used back home in religious ceremonies. (more…)

A Long Run in Short Shorts has been getting some very nice things said about it. An old friend from University days made me laugh with her comment:

“You manage the shortness very impressively.”

To encourage you to get hold of the book – and there’s plenty of copies left – here are some comments that arrived from people in the storytelling world:

“I’m savouring each story. It’s rather like unwrapping another chocolate – I’ll just have one more…”
Dr Hilary Minns, lecturer and storyteller, Warwick University

“These written versions of your personal stories have also challenged me to stand by the stories I tell, because of what they mean to me … their values are part of me.”
Meg Philp, professional storyteller, Brisbane, Australia

“Each story has made so many pictures and provoked memories of my own.”
Jean Edmiston, professional storyteller, Scotland

Such comments are enough to warm anyone’s heart – even when, this week, it has been so cold. In keeping with the weather here in London, here are two very short, sharp stories. I think I remember that the first one comes from North America (which, of course, is in all of our conversations right now): (more…)

When things are rough, you sit tight. That’s the conventional wisdom. Yet when things are tough, you surely must also keep your eye on possibilities for improvement, the chance for things opening up.

It’s completely clear from the newspapers and TV that, for many of us, it feels like it’s been a horrible year. Syria, Brexit, Trump – whatever your politics, it feels like the world has got itself into the most horrendous mess. Frightening too. Maybe it’s all in the stars, the personal mirroring the public and vice versa, but numerous friends have also been declaring of late that it’s been a tough year in their own lives too.

So at first I felt completely flummoxed when I began thinking about this week’s blog. What could I possibly say? What story might there be? What pictures? Then, most unexpectedly as I floundered around, a little tale popped into my mind. It’s a tale of personal experience, though not my own. I heard it a long time ago and it’s got nothing at all to do with New Year as such. Yet as I thought about it, the story felt to me like just the right thing. For what could be better for this New Year than the idea that something wonderful might occur,  something that could bring a sense of a new dimension of life and hope?

The story: Opening Up (more…)

Two wise sayings ring through my mind as I write this. The first I heard earlier this week. I was  coming out of my local Sainsbury’s shop with a copy of the day’s Guardian newspaper under my arm. The front-page headline was about Donald Trump and when the Security Guard at the shop door saw it, he made a suitably disparaging remark which led to us having a long conversation.  The conversation came to an end with this remark, all the more memorable for the rich Jamaican tones in which it was said:

‘No one is intelligent by size but by heart and by reason.’

The second of my wise sayings was said to me on 24^th October exactly ten years ago. And why do I remember the date so well? Because 23rd October is my birthday and this remark was made to me on the following day. You’ll see why from the story below. It’s a personal tale, one of a collection of such tales I’ve been writing. Enduring Friendships is the title I’ve given this one – and with a modicum of intelligence you’ll be able to work out from it exactly how old I’ll be tomorrow. (more…)

Odd how things happen, isn’t it? On Thursday evening, we went to a concert at the Union Chapel in Islington. I hadn’t been there for a million years – and it’s a beautiful place with a fascinating history. Way back then, my visit was to hear the wonderful Welsh singer and harpist, Siân James (with whom I once did a storytelling performance). Now it was to hear the equally wonderful Portuguese fado singer, Claudia Aurora.

One of Claudia’s songs on Thursday was all about insects. She introduced it with a heartfelt (and very funny) account of how she cannot bear SPIDERS and how she’d found a HUGE spider on one of her curtains and was TERRIFIED until her neighbour came to the rescue.

So there I sat as she was speaking, my mind ranging over the subject of spiders – all the cobwebs currently on my windows, for it’s definitely been the spider season, and how, when someone tells me how they hate spiders, I often briefly recount that North American Indian story which is such a brilliant reminder of our human foibles. (more…)

This week it’s not a poem or a legend or a myth or a folktale. What I have is a very personal tale, and one with a moral to it. 

We went to fetch an elderly friend – I’ll call her Peggy – to come for tea with us in the village of Mathri where we have our Pembrokeshire house. Last time I was here, I’d mooted the idea and it proved a most happy time for all of us. 

Peggy is 99 years old. She is a remarkable woman, the sister of one of my childhood ‘aunties’. But I only started getting to know her on her own account after that sister died a few years ago. One of many things I love and admire about Peggy is her remarkable memory. Another is her many little tales about people and events from both past and present. They’re part of the fabric of her conversation. On Wednesday, for instance, she was talking about Mathri fair. When she was growing up, this was the great event of the year. ‘And the chips,’ she said, ‘that was the big thing about it. Chips in newspaper with salt and vinegar.’

One tiny tale Peggy told in relation to Mathri fair was about the shop at the top of the village. Now falling into rack and ruin, it evidently used to be bursting with all kinds of stuff including men’s caps. Peggy recounted how these caps were hung in a row on pegs and how the men used to go in and try them on. ‘And one man,’ she said, ‘left his old cap on the peg and went out in the new one.’ (more…)

A beachcomber is what I’ve become. These days, when back in Pembrokeshire and going to a beach for a walk, I go with a bag and spend some time walking along the tide-line picking up bits of plastic rubbish. It’s amazing how much gets found – large and small lengths of plastic twine, sodden old plastic bags, broken flip-flops, fishing gear. Plastic is poison to sea-creatures. It is good to get rid of it.

Yesterday, collecting along the long length of Newgale beach, it occurred to me that this beachcombing is not unlike something I do as a storyteller. I don’t know if you do the same – namely, collect odd bits of story. They may be overheard pieces of conversation, sometimes perhaps just a single exclamation. Or they may be odd coincidences that happen over the course of a day or a week.

A hot-water bottle from the past: 

For instance, at an event in my native Fishguard at the beginning of this week, I met a young Welsh woman who’d also grown up in the town. As well as making me feel very happy by recounting the effect my storytelling had had on a young pupil of hers some years ago (always nice to hear such a thing), she recalled the person I knew as Aunty Mali although she wasn’t a blood relation. This young woman’s particular memory was of Aunty Mali often turning up at chapel in the winter with a hot water bottle for putting on her knees beneath a small rug she also carried. (more…)

It’s odd. You rack your brain for a story on a particular theme, conclude that you don’t have one, then suddenly realise that of course you do. It’s just that you’ve never seen it before from the perspective of that particular theme.

A dog story?

This week the problem occurred to me in relation to dogs. There I was on Abermawr beach when up came Storm. Storm is a black and white collie. His owner lives about half-an-hour’s walk from the beach. But Storm is always on the beach. For ten years or more, I’ve seen him whenever I go there. One day, I even spotted him from high on the coast path quite a distance away. A black and white dog? Yes, it was Storm.

Storm wears two tags on his collar. One says his name. The other says, ‘Please leave me on Abermawr beach.’ He loves that beach. He walks up and down it and in and out of the sea as if he just has to let you know what a fine place it is. This week, though, he looked less energetic. We could see he’s getting old. If and when he’s not on that beach, it won’t ever feel quite the same.

Storm started me thinking I’d like to write about him. And that led to me wondering if I know any folktale-type stories about a dog. No, I thought, I do not have n a single one. Then it dawned on me. I do. There’s a dog in a story I’ll be telling next week as part of Enchanted Evening, the evening of songs and stories my husband and I will be doing at Pepper’s in Fishguard with David Pepper as Paul’s accompanist.

Lifting the Sky is the story. It’s one that means a lot to me. (more…)

A couple of days ago, I went into my optician’s. The receptionist looked rather surprised.  I said I’d come to see if they could fix my dark glasses. He said he’d literally just picked up the phone to ring me to say my new glasses were ready for picking up. ‘Uncanny,’ he said and I agreed. The fact of having to wait for my new glasses had been the reason for wearing the dark ones. But last night at the theatre one lens of the dark ones was suddenly gone at the interval. We scrabbled around under the seats and, fortunately, the missing lens was there, unbroken. Phew!

Synchronicity:

It’s always a strange thing, that sense of synchronicity or coincidence. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but it has come to the fore several times recently in comments readers of this blog have sent in. After last week, these comments gave me a tingling sense of a new kind of storytelling community – one that exists on the web.

For ages, it’s been a belief of mine that community and storytelling go together. A common interest in stories literally brings people together.  The weekend after next it will be the Annual Gathering of the Society for Storytelling, this year being held in Cardiff. When the revival of storytelling was beginning to gather momentum in this country, the SfS played an important part in forging links between storytellers and helping to support new ones. The same thing had happened with the monthly Drill Hall workshops I ran for ten years from the mid-80s to the mid-90s with my friend and colleague Karen Tovell. Common interests create community and in the case of the Drill Hall workshops, they also helped develop a shared way of working that could then be used with all kinds of community groups.

Storytelling gets people sharing ideas and making friends. This can happen in a one-off workshop or a course that lasts over a number of weeks. It can happen in storytelling clubs as attenders get to know each other or  in a classroom situation as children hear new aspects of each other in how they respond to stories. 

Stories across the world-wide web: (more…)