Last Saturday April 10th we ran a day of workshops led by Poet Tess Biddington, story teller Jane Springham and performance poet Janine Booth

Tess encouraged us to spark ideas by writing without any plan and then by conjuring nouns and adjectives in the manner of how many music- bands adopted their names Pink Floyd/my favourite was Cloud Bibles. She moved on to show us a series of pictures several by Magritte, there was a Dali in there and then set us off to write…

Jane led us through the ways to prepare and share stories starting by retelling a known story each taking a turn working out what she called “the bones” of a story- in this case Little Red riding hood and then exploring different ways of re telling the basic- story.

Janine joined us from London and mostly encouraged us to be bold and shouty as the way to win an audience- she took us through making a list of things that might limit us in front of a bunch of people you may not know reading something you have not shared before.. Always read it to your self and then find someone else to listen and give you feedback.. Learn it by repetition but if your memory is not so robust that’s ok to read off the page.

Darren had been out all day Lambing in lonely Woolaston but he brought to life his shadow show made for the Wye Valley River Festival about a cow who could not cross the Wye and then unveiled his Crankie a North American Story Box which used his drawings to illustrate his telling of growing up on the farm and working with his Dad Les.

A Cuckoo Cabaret finished off the event including Pam’s Singer’s Winter in Winnipeg, Clare Ham’s memories of growing up and lambing plus regulars Maggie Clutterbuck, Charlie Markwick and the usual selection of widely ranging memory and invention that Oh Crumbs seems to spawn the next session is on thursday 22nd April from 8pm still for now Zooming on

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“I enjoyed the day gave me a lot of confidence”

“It was great hearing from so many different kinds of writers

“It gave me loads of ideas and confidence in my own writing”

“there was lovely companionship through the day”

“Darren’s shadow theatre and Crankie shows were great!”

we are planning to run further online workshop events- when things return to some normality – because we have made many new friends- writers- performers and audience from places near and far and we want to keep in touch….