Had another great session with the ladies at Mytholm Court last Tuesday - I had recording 7 moorland birds (including the very endangered Twite - or Pennine Finch) and played them these recordings, asking them to come up with ways of describing them to the deaf children I am working with. They came up with brilliant analogies: the grouse sounded like trying to start up a car with an old starting lever; the grey heron sounded as if it had fallen out of bed the wrong side....
Then, because this whole area is steeped in the remains of the clothmaking industries, I asked them to describe each bird in terms of what sort of material would it be: the Twite was satin being ripped in little jerks; the heron was a hair shirt, or emery paper; the skylark was fine cotton streaming out fast from an incredibly long roll... Have a go at thinking up your own analogies and images for the sounds of the moor - mixing up different senses, (eg describing the smell of something by describing what colour it might be; the taste of something by describing what sort of texture the taste might have; etc), is a great way to start. This is called synaesthesia, and can lead to some truly creative writing. All day Friday, I worked with my pal Bill Bartlett who is a BBC sound recordist - I met him last year when we worked on the telly programme Country Tracks together. I have been interviewing virtually everyone I have met as a result of the Watershed project - to collect their feelings and thoughts about the watershed and the high moors - and have been sending these recordings to Bill. He has edited them and collected masses of 'atmos' and sound effects from the moors, then mixed all these elements together to create a soundtrack for the Saddleworth Museum Watershed exhibition which I am off to set up this afternoon. We're really pleased with the result, but determined to do even better - and to expand the scope of the soundscape we have created - for the Cliffe Castle exhibition which starts in late September. So, on Friday, Bill and I were out again - up on the moors above my house, to record the sounds of walking, doing up boots, cagoule rustling, sheep commenting on what an idiot I looked striding through and across every type of surface we could find up there! But, on a usually absolutely sodden section of moor - studded with huge rushes and with a thick undercarpet of sphagnum moss - we could not find anywhere that was more than vaguely damp. We couldn't find any standing water, bog or squelchy mud. In the end we had to improvise with a very short puddle on a concrete farm track, and a bit of mud to the side of the concrete. So, I dutifully slopped and sploshed through this while Bill held his extremely expensive microphone as close as possible without it getting coated in slop! Aaaaaah, the things we have to do for ART!! On Friday 10th, I ran a writing workshop at Saddleworth Museum for a group of brand new writers. They were a lovely set, and all worked very hard. Here's some of them scribbling madly everything they could possibly think of about moorland. They came up with a splendid feast of words, phrases and lines. Feel free to use their 'palette' of morrland impressions to inspire your own pieces of writing. Here's how I prompted them to come up with such comprehensive lists... I asked them to write down: verbs to describe how you can move across moorland; ways to cross the moors (eg packhorse trails, M62...); all the different forms of wildlife, including birds; think about what's underfoot and what it feels like; what about the plants and the geology; what sorts of modern stuff do you find scattered across the moors; what sounds can you hear and what smells are there; how can you be on the ground but tied to the air; what stories or myths have you heard about moors; what literary references are there to moors; name as many specific places on the moors as possible; list moor weather; ... Have a go at this yourself and you'll soon come up with MASSES of 'colour' for your moorland 'palette' of material to help you paint your poems and stories. Here's what Keith, Carol, Di, Karen, Rona and Sue came up with: Boat Lane, Bleaklow, Standedge, Stone Edge, Pule Hill, Brun Clough, Lads Hill, Saddleworth Moor, Marsden Moor, Wimberry Moor, Indians Head, Lark Hill, Binn Green, Dovestones, Standedge Heights, Black Hill, Broadhead Noddle Beast of the moor, Daphne du Maurier, Wuthering Heights, Bills o’ Jacks, Moors Murders, Inns with creaky signs, Hound of Baskerville, Sherlock Holmes Boggy peat damp smell, pheasants moaning, wind in grass, burnt grass, traffic in distance, stones tipped over time, millstone insects, outcrops, heather, empty cans, sky above – kites, hang-gliders, quarry, old rail track for stone, white hare, uneven ground, evidence of camping, wet grass, weathered exposed rock, grass moving, echo of the past, timeless, plane wrecks, magic mushrooms, wimberries Bird calls – sharp, piercing, soul depth, evocative; distance, horizon, space, openness, wildness, wilderness, undulations; sheep bleats and baas, sheepdog – whistles; hot sun, gentle sun, gale, breeze, wind, rain, hail, sleet, snow, drizzle; signs, fencing – barbed wire, litter – cans, bottles, plastic, paper, cigarette ends; grass, tussocks, stone slabs, gravel, peat, worn path, beaten track; packhorse trails, packhorse bells, packhorse hooves and shoes, packhorse driver calls, packhorse train; picnic bag/box Deceptive bleakness; massive micro world; marks of man; reduced colours; grass (a desert of); dotted about sheep; space; big sky; trespassing patches of bog; lost birds; sudden cloughs (hidden); startling stubborn trees; terrified hares; purposeful people; ankle-breaking tussocks; enticing paths; false horizons; intruding scratchy heather; coarse grasses; terrain; forced entry; divide Wet soggy soaking; kites – attached to the sky; Yorkshire; Lancashire; staggering wandering falling wading wuthering hard work; criss-cross communications above because below is slow; murders; hard sharp mist-piercing low muffled sounds; trails roads cuttings footpaths relentlessly; cotton tops wimberries brambles rushes and reeds roughness; grouse lizards curlew peregrine falcon beetles; cutting edge rocks hard gritstone sharp; plastic bags rubbish lunches debris from people Earthy peaty muck spread smells; bird song tractor noise; brittle grasses/shrubs; black plastic left by farmers, beer cans at the bottom of Lark Hill; sense of permanence, history; isolated; vigorous and sturdy walking; fog blizzards; gritstone; thick sturdy sheep; looking up between branches; blue and green; martins catching insects; skylark warble; horse flies and evening midges; roe deer; wimberries purple-stained mouth And this is Rona’s lovely palette poem: Walking hard, heather is deep and spicy as the foot bruises the stems. Holes to catch foot in, then roads left by ancestors. A supermarket bag waves like a pennant from the lone spindly shrub, the stiff plastic sounding harsh and hoarse. A privileged glimpse of a mountain hare with its white winter coat The proud pheasant cock hogging the road once too often, now a pile of feathers, his call no more. The flightpath to Manchester airport hogs the hill crest. Ooops! I didn't have my film-maker - Mark - or my soundman - Bill - or my stills photographer - Janina - with me yesterday when I took out a minibus-full of elderly residents from Mytholm Court sheltered housing for a two-hour mystery tour of the moors. So, I only have one very shaky shot of everyone in the bus to prove that we did go out there! It threatened rain all day, but in fact the moors did us proud and we had bright sun with fabulous constantly-changing clouds, and a sudden smack of rain just to keep us in order as we were on our way home.
The ladies all really really enjoyed it, and wrote lots of good stuff that I am editing and collating for them ready for working on more next week with them. We sniffed hawthorn blossom and nettles, bracken and thistles, we talked about their experiences on the moor, when they worked at The Packhorse pub and dealth with sheep on their farms, we looked at rock formations, lambs, rabbits and cloud patterns (including checking out The Cloud Appreciation Society's fabby book: 'A Pig With Six Legs'), asked the workmen what they were working at on Widdop reservoir dam, we heard peewits, skylarks and curlews, and discussed the terrors of driving over the tops into the dreaded Lancashire! Sadly there wasn’t enough wind to fly the kites I had taken – that must be a first for Widdop! But I managed to get my lightest kite up in the air a bit (Phyllis ordered me to run with it!!), and Freda held the string from inside the minibus - armchair kite-flying! But we were soooo lucky with the weather and, although the air on the tops was cold, the rain held off until a sharp shower hit our minibus as we drove home on the Long Causeway – so the moors provided us with spectacular skies and quite a bit of bright sun. Even Dave the driver joined in when we were discussing windfarms (he was strongly in favour of them!). I LOVE working with Mytholm Court residents, they are a lovely gang, and they couldn’t say thankyou enough to the Watershed project for their two hour mystery tour today! Today I had my second session with residents at Mytholm Court sheltered housing scheme here in Hebden Bridge. They are a really grrrrreat bunch, and the excellent Georgina (pictured here in the pink with her co-conspirators Eileen and Carole) had spread the word, so I had 4 x as many there today as last week! We shared our experiences on what makes Hebden Bridge a special place - from ladies who had been born and bred here, and could go back umpteen generations in HB, to Bani - an Indian lady who had moved here from London just a few weeks ago, and this week we even had four men attending - a HUGE number for any writing group! It was great hearing the 16 different views all round the room. And hearing everyone's feelings and experiences of being up on the moors. I had taken in with me a couple of plates laden with 'delicacies' from the moor: crumbled peat, quartz crystals from the millstone grit, burnt heather stems, a clump of charred moor grass, and a section of beautiful trumpet lichen. We all had a good sniff, look and feel at these, and talked about the two 'universes' of the moor - the huge open vistas when you can see for miles and miles, and the much smaller, and much more complex, universe of everything that grows "below the height of a sheep's heart" to quote Sylvia Plath's wonderful poem 'Wuthering Heights'. Then I got everyone to jot down words and phrases that they feel about the moorland. Here's Phyllis (on the right) - the oldest resident at 97 - with her wonderfully clear handwriting (because she used to be an infant teacher she told me) very busy working with her friend Margaret. Next week we are setting off together on a minibus trip across the moors - no matter what the weather is hurling at us! - to inspire us all to do some more thinking / feeling / writing about our amazing - and often scary! - uplands.
Here's the wonderful collage of words they created: Up there Expanse of moorland - see/hear colours and birdlife - skylarks lifting our hearts to pylons and big sky. Exhilarating panorama, sense of freedom, fresh air, space. Unfriendly, scary, isolated, wouldn't like to be alone. And night-time? No thanks! Heather, gorse, bog-cotton, bilberries - and Mam's jam after, jars and jars of summer stacked in the cool pantry. Streams weaving about the moors, sound of grouse, windfarms, sheep. Roads follow original tracks, geese calling as they fly, deer spooked by cars. Picnics, rabbits, cattle, ants, midges! The sheer variety of colour and cloud formation. WE LOVE OUR MOORS!! Oh, and last Saturday I had my final session with the Oldham Writers group - this time we met in Saddleworth Museum rather than up on the very windy moors. Again, word must have spread that I run a fun session because several more writers joined us! We did a free writing session all about the moors, had a good read-round, looked at useful ways of editing our work, and they all agreed to my challenge to write a piece ready for the Saddleworth Museum's Watershed exhibition which opens at the end of June. I'm really looking forward to reading their Lancastrian 'take' on the moors! Yesterday we were soooooo lucky with the weather! Today it is absolutely syling down with rain here - the first proper rain we've had in about 3 months (hence all the moorland fires we've been having). But yesterday was perfect - not too cold, but enough wind to enable the deaf children I took out onto Ovenden Moor to fly the kites they'd made, and have fun battling with the wind as we wended our way through the stunning bog cotton, and investigated the strange stone sculptures up there. The kids LOVED it - and all us adults did too! We used our imaginations to ask what was underneath the resevoir; why the moor was so lumpy and bumpy (what giants were buried under there?!); to fight parts of the First World War in the strange trench-like structures; to try to figure out who built the stone sculptures - and why; to think about what the landscape would have been like when the millstone grit was being laid down and the whole place was a jinormous river delta; to roll around in the peat and grass to feel the textures and smell the different scents of the moor... It was too cold to hang around and do writing out there, but it was MUCH more important for the children to really experience the moor with as many of their senses as possible. We had a great time together, and I'm really looking forward to going into their school and working with them to follow up their moor trip with lots of writing, story-boarding, drama and drawing about their trip. The best thing was that all the kids were desperate to come back and get out on the moors again! Only one of them had ever been out on the moor before, so this is a fantastic result! Patna and me doing synchronised signing! We ended the experience at the big wind farm just nearby, and - to warm ourselves up! - we all 'became' turbines. I'm sure we generated enough electricity to give their writing and artwork a really good buzz! Toddling round Heptonstall area with the wonderful Clare Balding was great fun - you can hear the result: Ramblings (BBC Radio 4 programme) for the next 6 days. Click on the link on my News and Current Events page cos I'm no techie and can't get the link to work on this blog! And today I've been working with writers from Oldham up on Saddleworth Moor in bright bright sunshine and VERY strong wind. We tasted hawthorn leaves, sniffed orchids we found right next to our car park, flew kites, tasted Yorkshire water (from my kitchen tap!) to decide whether it tasted different from their (red rose!) water, thought about different settings and characters - eg the farmer who forced the builders of the M62 to split the motorway to go round his farmhouse; the helicopter pilot who landed very close to us to do a rescue for an accident... In other words, we threw ourselves into experiencing the Watershed with as many of our senses as possible. It was really good fun, and I'm looking forward to working with them at Saddleworth Museum next week to see what poems and stories they've managed to write. Now I'm off down to the skatepark festival in Hebden Bridge to see if I can collar any of the skateboarders for a session up on the moors with me! Last week I went walking with the wonderful Clare Balding on one of her literary Ramblings walks from Heptonstall and up and down various wonderful paths and old packhorse trails. I was trying to give a plug to my work as writer-in-residence for the Pennine Watershed, but not sure what the Beeb will/won't include in the programme. We had superb weather for the walk, and it was great to be out with some of my writing and environmental pals with Clare and her producer Maggie.
I was also meeting the staff at Mytholm Court - the sheltered housing scheme for elderly residents in Hebden Bridge. A really lovely trio: John, Sarah and Pam - and they were all v enthusiastic about me working with 'their' residents, and were sure they'd have some great tales to tell about their moorland adventures and experiences. Yesterday I was working again with Thorn Park School for Deaf Pupils in Bradford - getting to know Joy and Jeanette (the teachers I'll be working with) and some of their pupils. We even had a little game of fottie together!
My signing is rusty, but it started coming back to me with a vengeance when some of the cheekier lads started signing various dubious stuff at me!! They're a great set, and I'm soooo loking forward to taking them out onto Ovenden Moor where I've found a whole set of really interesting features and views that I hope will trigger off their imaginations. I'll have a film-maker and soundman with me to document the experience, and we'll be flying kites, making up sign-poems, exploring the world of the Giants who sleep under the moor, and trying not to get blown away while we're there! I'm still trying to get in contact with the Hebden Bridge teenage skateboarders who I'll be working with, and I've had another two sessions with the wonderful Saddleworth quilters - gathering their impressions of the high moors on a digital audio recorder and editing these down for the exhibition's soundtrack. They came up with some fabulous imagery and memories! I'll also be working with an Asian women's group from Keighley later in the year, and elderly people who are residents at Mytholm Meadows - it'll be great to compare and contrast all these different individuals' and groups' experiences/ideas/feelings about the Watershed. I've been busy gathering various 'treasures' off the moor - tiny pinches of peat and ground-down millstone grit; a burnt chunk of rushes (we've already had some very nasty morrland fires round my way); trumpet lichen and flowering bog cotton. I have these all over my desk as inspiration - bringing the moors right into my working space! And have been working on a series of Watershed poems - just first drafts as yet - since the workshop I attended run by last year's Watershed writer, Andrew McMillan. I've also been taking masses of photos because I want to try to capture spring as it creeps up onto the moors - it's always weeks and weeks behind spring in the valleys, and currently the moors are still in their winter 'coat'. I am loving going for walks across different parts of the Watershed as I grow my knowledge of the area, and also learning to tune in my ears, eyes and feet to really hear, see and feel the landscape - eg I can now recognise a twite at 100 paces - previously just an anonymous Small Brown Job! I can distinguish between curlew, grouse, lapwing and skylark really easily now - and am writing a poem using metaphors for their 'voices'. I am dredging up my old Environmental Sciences degree know-how about lichens and mosses, and the contents of sheep and rabbit poo, and enjoying getting right down to the eye-level of the rather lovely beetles that live under the heather! Has anyone else noticed the sheer SIZE of bumblebees this year - they're jinormous! I think they've bulked up in a bid for moor domination! And have you all seen the glorious vermillion of the fruiting trumpet lichen this month - stunning! If not, here's a flavour: Right, the Watershed Writer-in-Residence project is really heating up now. Yesterday I met the wonderful Canalside Quilters ladies at Saddleworth Museum and introduced my project to them. Some of them are going to do some writing about their response to the moors, and to watersheds in their lives; and a lot of the other ladies are busy thinking up all sorts of ideas for how they can respond to the Watershed in their next designs for quilts and other sewing projects. It'll be ACE to have some of their writing and sewing in the big exhibition that will mark the end of my residency. This will run for 3 months at Cliffe Castle Museum - a fabulous exhibition space - this autumn. Tomorrow I am meeting the BBC soundman (Bill Bartlett) from my session with Country Tracks. Bill's very kindly going to give me lots of techie advice (and lunch!) on how to create great audio tracks of moor sounds, poetry and spoken reactions to the moors. I'm wanting to include these audio tracks in the month-long exhibition at Saddleworth Museum, and in the Cliffe Castle exhibition.
It would be BRILLIANT to hear from YOU with your own written reactions to being out on't moor - either in diary form, or poetry or prose or creative non-fiction - however you fancy responding! Crikey! I feel like I really have joined the 21st Century (albeit kicking and screaming!) now I'm doing a blog.
I'm going to use this blog mainly to keep a log of what I'm doing for the Pennine Watershed project that I'm writer-in-residence for. And to let you know about events and stuff related to it. So far I'm going to be running workshops for Saddleworth Museum, Cliffe Castle Museum and Hebden Bridge Arts Festival. With HBAF I'm working throughout June with groups of elderly residents from two care homes and also a lot of local skateboarders - to bring them together to share their experiences of watersheds in their lives, and also to take them out on the moors to write! I'll also make kites with some groups and get them to compose poems, write them on their kites and then fly them on the moors - should be fun, and nice and colourful too. |
AuthorChar March - I'm a freelance writer and tutor. I am Writer-in-Residence for the Pennine Watershed Project, and this blog takes you through some of the work I've done in that role Archives
December 2011
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