How did it go? Most storytellers, I guess, look back at any event they’ve been involved with, formal or informal, and consider if it lived up to how they’d have liked it to be. For me, that process happened twice yesterday. The morning held a long interview on Skype with a storyteller in Bangalore in India. I’ve never been a great aficionado of Skype but this conversation was really magic. My interviewer’s list of questions was very much to the point and during it, she asked what advice I’d have for a new storyteller. My answer included what long ago became a motto I gave to myself: forgive yourself if you feel your storytelling didn’t go as well as you’d have hoped. There is always a next time and you have to learn from your mistakes.

The afternoon involved the birthday party I spoke briefly about in last week’s blog.  In the event, 14 girls turned up, one or two of them rather quiet, the rest of them very excited. An initial activity involved them thinking up a magic power, a magic food and a magic creature. Then it was over to the storytelling. After a name game to help all  feel included and an introductory story about a frog that happily made them all laugh, we went immediately into that story from Grimms’ Other Tales, the story of Catharinella.  The children settled into it quickly, though I realised from the looks on one or two faces that even at 7 years old, the idea of an ogre that might eat you up can feel a tad alarming. Where necessary, you have to go easy.  Then as we went on, I felt really glad that, in my advance preparations, I’d  become aware of some unresolved features in the story as written. My thoughts about how to resolve them proved very productive and that felt nice.

The story in brief: (more…)

OK, I admit it, I’ve been darning. It’s not a fashionable thing to do. But when warm clothes come out of storage as winter hoves into view, that’s when you spot the frayed ends and the tears – and also in my case the moth holes, moths being a plague in South London.

Hence the darning. It’s something I was taught as a child and, to be honest, I enjoy it. It’s satisfying, it saves on money and shopping and it makes me love my clothes all over again.

Yesterday while sitting darning in a spot of sunshine, I was reminded of the story below. But it wasn’t only the darning that brought it to mind. Among my emails had been a message from someone who’d come on a storytelling course of mine ages ago. I recognised her name as it popped up in my Inbox. We’d exchanged emails for a while after the course was over because she’d wanted to tell me how much she was enjoying becoming a storyteller to children in the school where she worked. And hey presto, she’s still doing it! Her message this week lets me know how much the storytelling means to her following some personal troubles she’s suffered. She describes it as ‘healing’.

No wonder today’s story about a sewing box popped into my mind. I’m fairly sure it wasn’t one that we did on the course she attended. But it’s one I’ve often told to Primary children – sometimes with the effect that afterwards I’ve heard that they’ve been sewing story-titles too!

The story: A Stitch in Time (more…)

So here’s the third of my blogs about that beautiful story from the Arabian Nights which I’m preparing for telling in a fortnight’s time.  The first blog gave a brief idea of the story as I’d remembered it over a number of years. The second itemised the three treasures in the story that I’d completely forgotten about. Now here’s the main body of the story.  I’ve simmered it down to its bare bones. That’s how I work when I’m starting from a written story. Visualisation must do the rest. Here goes.

The set-up:

Farizad and her two brothers, Farid and Faruz, live in the beautiful garden which was created by the gardener and his wife who were their parents.

Now the parents have died.

One day an old woman comes to the garden and says to Farizad: This garden is beautiful but it would be perfect with 3 rare treasures – the Talking Bird, the Singing Tree and the Golden Water. Farizad asks where these can be found? In the mountains on the road into India.

Farizad says she must go and find them. Farid and Faruz say, ‘No, we’ll go.’ But then they agree that one brother must stay to look after Farizad.

Quest of Brother No. 1 (more…)

A bit of patter is part of the art. It may be only to say where a story comes from, where and from whom you heard it. Or it may be something about the weather, the event or the audience you’re addressing. It may be some introductory narrative that includes something about being a storyteller (after all, lots of people still don’t know what to expect) or you may have a joke that puts people at their ease. Whatever it is, it’s all part of creating a receptive atmosphere.

Dylan Thomas in Fitzrovia:

This week, I participated in the Fitzrovia Festival, an annual week of events that take place in the area round London’s Fitzroy Square. This year’s festival has been dedicated to Dylan Thomas. I did two sessions of Dylan Thomas readings and, among other things, my patter for my second session included a delightful (and true) little story I once heard from one of the people involved. This was an English lecturer on a visit to South Wales to see her daughter and her daughter’s two little children. An excursion to Laugharne had been planned so as to visit The Boathouse where Dylan Thomas lived and the shed where he worked. The children had heard a lot about this proposed excursion and on the way in the car, one of them piped up from the back, ‘Mum, will we see see Dill and Thomas?’

For my first session, which I knew in advance would be for young children, one piece of patter that came in handy was what I’d discovered a few days previously when making decisions about what poems and prose-readings I’d offer. Two possible poem options – Poem in October and Poem On His Birthday sent me scurrying to look up when Dylan Thomas was born. A hundred years ago, yes. But when exactly? The answer was 22nd October – the very day of my readings.

Preparing for the 6-year olds:  (more…)

‘Did you bring anything back from your holidays?’ It’s a good question for inviting stories from children as well as adults. But beware! Whatever little treasures you acquired yourself, they’re likely to remain in your home for a very long time. They start off precious and they go on being precious and they also add to the stuff you’ll one day feel you need to get rid of. Take my word for it. I know.

Meantime, I remain dazzled by the sun-bleached crab shell I picked up from one of my Pembrokeshire beaches on one of my forays back home from London. Its delicacy and intricacy capture my admiration every time I look at it. It has the additional attraction that  it reminds me of one of my favourite Shemi stories.

Shemi’s stories are ones that children of all ages get absolutely hooked by. The fact that Shemi was real – he died in 1897, a well-known tall-tale-teller in his locality (North Pembrokeshire) and by all accounts much-loved – only adds to the huge attraction. So here’s that particular tale of his of which I’m reminded by my crab-shell. You can find it in a fuller version under the title, Crab Meat for Supper, in my book Shemi’s Tall Tales. (And you can order Shemi’s Tall Tales from me if you wish by clicking on My Publications on my website).

Shemi and the Enormous Crab

One day when he was out fishing, Shemi pulled a huge big sewin out of the river. But as soon as he’d hauled it up onto the river-bank, a great big heron flew down and swallowed it whole. Shemi shouted at the heron: not only had his sewin disappeared into the heron’s gullet, his fish-hook had gone there as well.  (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…)

Riddle-me-See: this week it’s eyes. Riddle-me-See is a deliciously gruesome story. When I told it, ages back, to storyteller Kate Portal who is blind, she said she loved it, she’d add it to her collection of eye stories. But first, a word about the Comments that flooded in response to last week’s Blog.

Empathetic, innovative, optimistic, creative, sentimental, thoughtful and deliciously perfumed: so many qualities made themselves felt in the answers to Riddle-me-Rose. Look back and you’ll see.

The answer to the question – how did the gardener know which rose was his wife? – is, of course, down-to-earth. He’s a gardener. He knows that, in early morning, the blossoms in the rose-bed will sparkle with dew. The rose that is his wife does not. She’s been inside the cottage with him long enough for any dew-drops to disappear.

Karen, I think, might have known or guessed but gave her answer an innovative twist in making dew-drops into tears. Delicious clouds of perfume emanated from nearly everyone else – Jean, Claire, Sal, Larry – and, Larry, the Shakespearean reference feels very apt. Liz thought he knew his wife by looking into the eyes of the flower, for it’s in the eye that you see another person’s soul. As for Annalee’s suggestion – that the wife was the rose with a name-tag – it immediately reminded me of that extraordinary occasion some ten years after I got married when, in the course of weeding my garden, I pulled out a piece of columbine and saw, hanging from its root,  the wedding ring I’d lost eight years before. The ring glistened. I felt amazed.

Eyes: a riddle (more…)

Two separate events have brought monkeys into my mind this week. One was receiving a message from a student on the Warwick University course I visited a few weeks ago. She was getting in touch to ask me where she could find a copy of the Little Red Monkey story that I’d told in my session. She’d liked it and now hoped to tell it. But she hadn’t been able to find a copy either on this blog or my website.

This surprised me: it’s one of my favourite stories for children and I thought I’d posted it on this blog a while ago. So I sent her a copy and told her she could also find it in my book, Stories for Young Children and How to Tell Them (A & C Black).

Now, of course, I feel I must remedy my previous omission. So please look below for the story with, at the end, a few hints on how you might tell it. Also if you’d like to hear me telling it there are links to my website. 

First, though, here’s a thought-provoking little poem. It’s called The Prayer of the Monkey and it comes from the set of poems, Prayers from the Ark, that I acquired a few weeks ago. Prayers from the Ark was written in French by the little-known poet, Carmen Bernos de Gasztold. It was translated into English by Rumer Godden and, in the version I have, was published by Macmillan in 1966. Last Sunday, I read the whole set  to a special group to which I belong. We call the group Works in Progress or WIPs for short. When we meet, each of us presents something creative that we’ve been working on.

This time, I presented Prayers from the Ark. I feel the poems are ideal for speaking aloud (reciting poetry was one of my loves as a child) and I hope soon to be offering public readings of them, for example for charity concerts. I see them as fables that are in tune with one of the world’s great needs of today – that we should as a species become far more aware that we share this beautiful earth with all kinds of other creatures, both wild and domestic.  So here is The Prayer of the Monkey. But the monkey is not the loveably cheeky monkey of most people’s imaginations. It’s a melancholy monkey. It might make us think! (more…)

Hooray!!! Now you can subscribe to my Blog. See below for what to do. What a pleasure this facility has now been sorted – all thanks to the ever-helpful Tim Howe. Comment, Warwick, Poems, Subscription – it’s been a week of good things.

Comment

A comment from a reader always feels good to get. Jo had been enjoying my recent series on Getting Participation. She loves creating stories with children. She describes sitting with a piece of material and allowing the children to choose any object around the room. ‘We decide where we are, the material for example could be blue and shiny, maybe we are at the bottom of the deep dark blue sea. Each child takes a turn describing what their object may be: a cotton reel becomes a pirate ship, the pencil is the mast, the ship has sunk, the button becomes the treasure …’ And so, as Jo points out, they end up with their own story.

Warwick

On Wednesday evening, a hearteningly warm and engaged response came from the students on Hilary Minns’ excellent Storytelling Module at Warwick University. I’ve been going as guest storyteller to Hilary’s course for about ten years now. The students are all studying child development for a Foundation Degree. One of the stories I did with them was Little Bear on the Long Road. (The prop I always use for this story is on the right in a painting I made of him when I was in hospital four years ago.) On this visit, it was brilliant to meet the person responsible for setting up a similar course at Telford who had come along for the session.  I believe, and have always said so, that such courses should be available nation-wide. (more…)

Once again, it’s the time of year to tell the Star Apple story. It’s one of those stories that can be infinitely adapted to suit your audience. I love it. I also love hearing (as I did on the recent occasion when I got that Lifetime Achievement Award) that one storyteller who’d come across the story on this Blog then told it with great effect to an audience and absolutely loved the response. My great thanks to Sal Tonge who first told it to me.

Star Apple

A little child (make it a boy or a girl) is always saying, ‘I’m bored’. The child’s mother has plenty of answers – ‘tidy your bedroom’, ‘do your homework’ or ‘go and play with your toys’ – but the child keeps coming back with the same complaint. Then one day (probably sometime about now!) the mother says, ‘Well, why not go and find a little green house with a chimney on top and a star inside.’

The child is suitably mystified. He or she goes and searches the toy box. There’s nothing that fits the description.

Then the child goes out to the street. Up and down the street he or she goes, peering at all the houses one by one in case one has turned green, gained a chimney and developed a star inside. No luck.

At that point, the child goes to call on Granny who lives next door. ‘Gran,’ says the child. ‘You know Mum?’ ‘Yes,’ says Gran in that strange way that adults do. ‘Well,’ says the child. ‘Mum’s gone made. She said I’ve got to find a little green house with a chimney on top and a star inside. And there isn’t one.’

‘Well,’ said Granny. ‘Have you looked really hard?’ ‘Yes,’ says the child. ‘And there isn’t one.’

Then Granny says, ‘Well, Let’s go in the kitchen and we’ll have a look there.’

In the kitchen, Granny takes a green apple out of the fruit bowl and says, ‘See, here’s a little green house. And look,’ she says, wiggling the stem, ‘it has a chimney on top.’

‘But it’s supposed to have a star inside,’ says the child. ‘Well, let’s have a look,’ says Granny.

So Gran picks up her knife (be careful, don’t leave the knife hanging around).

And when she cuts the apple in half (and when you do it, don’t cut downwards but across the middle), she reveals the star inside.

Try it and see. Any children you know will be amazed and delighted. In my experience, so will the adults.  And that’s the end of the story except, of course, you could now cut up the apple and share it around.

Happy Christmas! Enjoy the magic. Enjoy the stars. And enjoy the prospect of a whole new year ahead.

P.S. I’ll be taking a holiday from my Blog over the next couple of weeks except perhaps for putting up a picture or two. (more…)