Yesterday, my local supermarket had English strawberries – first time this season. They immediately reminded me of my favourite dessert, even though that recipe calls for a tin of strawberries, not fresh ones. So memory goes. Thinking about the dessert brought back to mind the person who gave me the recipe and then I thought I’d write about her here, partly because she was so striking in herself, partly because she raises an interesting question.

How is it possible that someone you meet can remain a huge influence even when, later, you scarcely remember anything at all about them? I guess we storytellers hope it’s so with our storytelling – that a story we tell or an occasion when we tell it may leave an impression that becomes a lasting influence on some person who receives it.

A woman of influence

Cicely Williams-Ellis was the sister-in-law of Clough Williams-Ellis, creator of Portmeirion, the fantastical Italianate village on a luxuriously wooded hillside on the coast of north-west Wales. She was in her old age when a colleague and I went to visit her. At the time, we were doing research for an investigative piece for The Sunday Times about the country’s National Parks. Meeting Cicely was of interest because she’d played a leading part in the movement to form the National Parks and also the CPRW, the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales.

But what do I remember of Cicely Williams-Ellis now? (more…)

Question: What’s a story? The answer, I’m sure, will be familiar to you. Answer: It’s a letter from the past that we send on to the future.

This saying popped back into my head this week from the higgledy-piggledy storage box I’m obliged to call my mind. A family member was wanting to talk through our family tree. So I’d plunged into some actual storage boxes up in the loft where the contents are an absorbing horde of photos, postcards, notes and letters. (more…)

Playfulness is realising how stories can dance as they start to whirl between us, inviting us to join the fun and giving us energy and things to remember.

I recall how, at my secondary school, the very proper senior mistress who organised and led our folk dancing sessions would start getting pink in the face, especially as we did The Tennessee Wig Walk, strands of hair coming loose from her hair-gripped bun as she got the naughtiest boys to  partner her  in the dance. How her foot would start to tap, her hips to sway, her face begin to melt in laughter.

 This week, still down in Pembrokeshire after the New Year, I heard one of the funniest stories ever from our great friend, Eddie. ‘All true, of course, every word of it,’ he said as his story began to dance.

Eddie’s story:

Eddie’s story happened during the days when he and his friend Graham were in the business of catching crabs in the sea off Lower Town, Fishguard. They’d load up the crabs they caught and then take them to sell in the fish market down in Milford.

 On this particular occasion, Eddie and Graham had got a bumper catch, lots more crabs than normal, in fact enough to fill ten whole tea-chests. So they got them into the chests, covered each chest with netting to keep the crabs inside, loaded the chests onto their pick-up and set off on the road to Milford. (more…)

Last weekend, we were trying to find our way round to Door 3 of the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff (we were there to sing on the pitch before the Wales/Fiji rugby game). When we got to Door 5 and the way wasn’t obvious, we asked an official standing in the road: ‘How do we get round to Door 3?’ His answer made us laugh (typical South Wales humour!): 

‘One foot in front of the other is usually recommended.’

I love people’s odd little ways of saying things. In recollection, they often turn into the kind of tiny tale I find so useful in my storytelling. They come direct from people’s perceptions. They’re true-life tales – fabulous for putting into the interstices of a storytelling session as connectors, sometimes because they’re odd or funny, sometimes because they can introduce the theme of a story I’m about to tell.

Maori style:

(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…)

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…)

Stories can be like symbols. They can tell you a lot about something you’re feeling, something that’s happened in your life. But they don’t do it directly. The information comes through the story. It comes in sideways. So if you look into the ways you’re affected by a particular story, it can sometimes let you understand and accept something about yourself.

Something like this happened to me last Saturday. The event in itself was absolutely horrid. But when I realised the symbolism in my own true story, I felt much better. It even made me laugh.

The horrid event

Last Saturday afternoon I was looking forward to watching the Wales rugby game on TV – Wales vs. South Africa. (And yes, I was going to be disappointed when Wales got beaten.) Coverage would be starting at 5 p.m. I realised I had a short time beforehand to go to my local shop for one or two things that I needed. So I quickly grabbed a shopping bag from the bag behind our cellar door in which we keep our shopping bags. The one I brought out was an old black plastic bag. I recognised it as one that had been around for some time and it wasn’t one I especially liked. But never mind, I thought. We believe in re-using shopping bags and this one would do. So I quickly shoved my wallet and shopping list inside and set off. It was starting to drizzle. I walked fast. In double quick time I got to the shops, chose some bananas from the stall outside the newspaper shop and looked in the shopping bag to get out my wallet.

My wallet wasn’t there! Nor was the shopping list.

No wallet?

And that’s when I saw the great big hole in the bottom of the bag. Frayed and gaping, it looked like someone had cut at the bag with a pair of shears. No wonder there was no wallet inside. My heart dropped like a stone. Immediately I put down the bananas and turned for home, walking as quickly as I could, hoping against hope that I’d see my wallet on the pavement or that maybe, I’d find it at home. Perhaps it had fallen out of the bag before I’d even left the house.

No wallet. Not on the street, not by my front door, not inside the house. I immediately decided to retrace my steps to the shops in case I had missed it. So I did, all the while looking carefully around, wondering about who might have picked it up and whether they might have thrown the wallet away after they’d taken everything out. No wallet. Even as I went, I was becoming aware of several feelings. They all seemed to dawn on me at once. First I felt extremely stupid. Why hadn’t I looked in the bag? Why had I not noticed the hole?

Secondly, it dawned on me that I now had no money and no credit cards. Paul was away for the day. There was no spare money in the house. So I wouldn’t be able to buy what I needed. This made me suddenly realise what it must be like to be often or always in such a situation. It made me identify deeply with people who – especially in the present financial situation – often or always have that same feeling of powerlessness and need. I at least have a husband who’d be arriving home later and who’d be able to get what was required. Also, I do have friends in my street who’d have helped at once if I’d gone to ask.

Meantime, even as I continued to feel very stupid, I was already extremely anxious about the credit cards that had now gone missing with the wallet. I was aware I’d have to try and cancel them as soon as possible. So I’d have to remember what they were, I’d have to find the telephone numbers to ring and I’d have to get on with it quickly. For I still wanted to watch that rugby match. I had one hour to do the job. Amazingly, I managed it. Then I sat down to watch the rugby match, feeling stupid, downhearted and shaken.

Is this me?

Later when the game was over, I looked again at that shopping bag. It was obviously a well-worn bag. It would not have been surprising really if there’d been a tear in the bottom and quite understandable if that tear had got bigger as the bag swung around with my wallet inside.

And then it dawned on me why I was feeling so bad. Because of what had happened, I was feeling like the bag itself – unobservant, broken, frayed, unsafe. As soon as I realised the symbolism, the connection between the story of what had happened and myself, I felt better. I may be sometimes unobservant and inattentive (isn’t everyone?). I’ve been around for a bit. I’m getting a bit frayed round the edges. And, coincidentally, I use the name Old Bag Productions when I make greetings cards for my family and friends. But that, I hope, is where the comparison can stop. So now I can laugh about the symbolism in my own story.

P.S.

As you can see, my photos this week are of bags. In the circumstances, the theme is irresistible. But these bags are my good, true and infinitely-well-used story-bags, the ones I have used so many times to carry about the beautiful cloths, musical instruments and other fascinating items that I employ in my storytelling. (more…)

You often come across them on beaches: little worlds that have been lovingly made and left to their subsequent fate by their creators. These little worlds may be excavated pools surrounded by sand-castles and carefully decorated with shells, pebbles and feathers.

Or they may be Stonehenge-type arrangements of rocks. Or maybe, amazingly, lifelike figures created from an arrangement of stones.

I remember making such things as a child.

Fairy pools

So it was a great delight this week to come across a little world in the very process of being created down at Pwll Strodyr, our favourite tiny Pembrokeshire cove. Hardly anyone goes to Pwll Strodyr, which is one of the reasons we love it.

This week, on a beautifully warm early evening, a man and a woman and their young daughter were there. ‘We’re making fairy pools,’ said the man when we greeted him as we arrived. ‘That’s nice,’ I replied. ‘It means you could get some fairies visiting and they’ll probably bring some luck.’

When I went swimming a little while later, I was careful to collect some long strands of green seaweed which I offered to the little girl as mermaid’s hair. (more…)

August days are times to relax, take your shoes off, go for a swim. They’re also times off for your mind, opportunities to notice things in a different kind of way, mull them over and allow the seeds of a story to sprout in your mind.

Years ago, Paul and I went on holiday to the isles of Mull and Iona. We were intrigued, on Mull, by the number of mail-boxes we passed. Again and again there they were on the road-side at the turn-off to farms and houses. Contraptions where the postman could leave people’s post, they came in different colours, shapes and sizes. Many looked like little houses. We couldn’t help noticing and commenting on them. In a flash, Mr Beaton existed.

The mail-box story (more…)

Pleasing (for me!) 

1. I’ve just heard I’m being nominated for an Astrid Lindgren award. Astrid Lindgren was the wonderful Swedish children’s writer who created Pippi Longstocking. I’m to be nominated in the Storyteller category.

2. On Monday I had a phone call with the editorial consultant whom I’d asked for a professional opinion on A Long Run In Short Shorts, my collection of short personal stories. She said she loves them. She’s urging me to try and find a publisher for them. She says they deserve an audience.

3. On Thursday I learned that a book on storytelling and sustainability to which I’ve contributed a chapter has found a publisher and is to be published next March.

4. I’ve managed to do a whole lot of writing during this week while I’ve been home in Wales.

All very pleasing. Of course, I’m sure there’s no chance at all of me winning the Astrid Lindgren Award. Finding a publisher for my stories is going to be very hard. The only payment for the sustainability book will be one free copy and the writing I’m currently doing is sure to take a whole lot longer before it’s complete.

Never mind. It’s the doing that counts.

And I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the cuckoos. On Thursday , another BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) blog gave news that Chris, the tagged cuckoo about whom I wrote last week, has made it over the Mediterranean.

He’ll probably be back in England any day now – a sign of real Spring. (more…)