Stogumber Storywalk

Last weekend was the brilliant Stogumber Festival with a diverse range of music, dancing and singing already on their agenda they asked if I would be part of the festivities with a Storywalk. Of course I said yes, but even better would be to work with Stogumber C of E School and involve their pupils in the writing.

After a little preparation I worked up the beginning and end to a story which involved the church gargoyles coming to life and exploring the village. The middle of the story was deliberately left free as I knew this was where the pupils would add their streaks of genius.

On the first morning we stepped out on the secret trail and it immediately became an explorational adventure of 'what if's?' and 'what could happen here?' - which is essential to enable the story to evolve. Children can be incredibly creative and fluid under the right circumstances and when they understand they have the freedom and liberty to do so it can be quite a roller coaster ride of possibilities.

       'Long before the sculptors mallet hit chisel, long before the stone itself was lifted from the earth with block and tackle, they slept. Eons of time passed and the rock was compressed and squeezed, heated and formed by mantle pressures, and inside the little ones still slept on. The massive bed rock rose and lifted on unimaginable forces until its peeks became hill tops, and rivers cut valleys through it's heart.'

In the Storywalk world every corner becomes a myriad of possibilities, every crook and dip a place for their 'gargoyle' to explore and investigate. Who made those scratches on that gate? Why is there a dogs bone left here? Who ate it? 

In my mind it's the questions which write the stories and the stories which ask the questions, often it is just the starting point with the very first question which is the hardest.

     'Chip Chip Chip went the beetle on the chisel and the sense of the beast within began to awaken.'

Thankfully though Stogumber church had these stunning carvings which are a story teller's gift. Interestingly they are know locally as hunky punks rather than gargoyles, the difference being that a gargoyle has a water spout which casts roof water off the battlements, where as the hunky punks are purely decorative and designed to guard the church from evil.

The workshop day with Stogumber School went like a dream, the storywalk engine delivered all elements in order (and where expected) so when back in the class we swiftly mapped up the adventure then embarked on some creative writing. All the pupils are in years 5 and 6, and even with the tight time constraints of a single day, every child was able to write their piece and upload to the storywalk engine.

     'On the eighth day The Gargoyles wings were long and transparent as glass. It's teeth as sharp as a knife, super scaly body and he was two metres tall.'

Over the following few days I made the walk 'festival ready' and added a couple of flourishes to balance out the blood thirsty adventures the pupils had written!

Sunday was the final day of the festival and (bar a few technical glitches) the story was very well received. For me this was a single step in engaging with Stogumber school's pupils through Storywalks. In the new year I am due back in as the pupils teacher, Josh Wedderkopp, recently won a grant from the SHINE Trust to raise literacy and learning with his pupils. So in January the very first thing we'll be doing is re-reading and re-walking this story and then go back into the 'what if' questions and see where they take us. 

If you would like to integrate a Storywalk with your school, with either myself or Claire Vowell of Norton St Philip school Frome, then please do get in touch. For Storywalk experience days we arrive equipped with 3G iPads and a story ready to roll, together we will read, then geolocate new text by your pupils, and hopefully ignite their imaginations through making literature a little more physical.

For more info please see storywalks.info

Poetry from the edge of the world

Last year in 2013 I placed five story boxes along the Coleridge Way and had over 1000 people touch and interact with them over the three months residency.

This year the story boxes are back, but I was also asked to place some poetry boxes in the Valley of Rocks. The idea of both of these projects is really simple, a book in a box, tied to a bench, you find one, add a little and then leave. 

So I deployed six Coleridge Way story boxes (locations listed here) and also tethered six poetry boxes in the Valley of Rocks, Lynton. We have again been staggered by the volume of written content, within the first 8 days two poetry boxes were full and now two months in we have a shelf full of them! Amazing.

Part of the project was to digitally share, piping images of book pages through Twitter and Facebook so people could virtually follow as well as physically. Often the tags of #Poetry #ValleyofRocks and #Devon get the most attention, but you should follow @storywalks for the full feed.

But the books are more than just the written word for I also ask for sketches, thinking I would like to tap into another of the visitors latent skill bases, and for those who didn't want to write they could just sketch. Incredibly they have become peppered throughout breaking up the pages with great little observational sketches, in hindsight these have become quite helpful as I use them to remind me where the book had been situated. 

So the Poetry boxes and the Story boxes will be out for the whole of this month, to be collected end of August, they are then to be exhibited at Lynmouth Pavilion throughout September, and I am sure the project will continue in their restaurant as everyone who picks up a story book cannot resist adding a piece.

The volume and quality of both sets of boxes has really excelled this year. I've left little notes to say 'only poetry/story inside please' which have reduced the numbers of 'The Jones were here' but even without I feel that people have really understood the project this year, and are even more willing to seek them out, add something and then leave for others to find.

Story boxes on The Coleridge Way have been started by published Author / Illustrators Victoria Eveleigh, Jackie Morris and Katherine Hyde

The Exford Storywalk The Green Thief

In mid May last month I joined the Exmoor Community Youth Club to create a storywalk trail in the stunning Exmoor village of Exford, it was the first of two days and we were blessed with fabulous weather. The first thing to do was walk the trail, (which I had already planned) and I knew a special spot where I thought might be good to stop and tell my tale The Green Thief.

So first off the green and along the lane on the raised footpath, a little gem which is unique to Exford and was a picture of stunning wild flowers.

A little time keeping, to keep us all punctual!

Off the road and over the fields we crossed the river Exe by a very bouncy bridge, (children do love to bounce!) Then into a sun dappled glade for a some traditional storytelling amidst the bluebells, what a location. At this spot a tree had conveniently fallen with enough seating for all, an ideal spot to tell my tale The Green Thief, about the good people of Exford and how they dealt with the cunning Jack Frost.

A theatre of water and bluebells

Part of the storywalk journey is getting to know the canvas, and then taking inspiration from these locations. It is often through the place's props, hollow trees or bridges, and wondering what story interventions you can make in these places. These can often inform and change the story and make it unique to that location alone.

We decided that this old ice house, which many in the party had not noticed before, was where the Green Thief might reside, this fitted with the story really well, but meant that other features of the tale needed to shift around. It's always fun playing with plots, as little interventions can often have huge effects on the direction of a story.

Or perhaps is it where he hid the Badgers Stole which glowed with the wild fire of the sun?

An image for the walk perhaps?

This coming Saturday is the second and final day with the brilliant Exmoor Community Youth Club, and we shall be pulling this story apart, and using my automatic story creating 'shells-tells-tales' books to add new parts, or at the very least have some darn good story telling creative fun with!

Writing and mapping the story and journey together.

We'll then tag and geolocate the finished tale as best we can along the trail, and I will tidy the final piece up at a later date ready for all to see this summer.

See you on Saturday, and I would like to thank the Exmoor Society for making this project possible.