Pauline telling stories at Darwin, Dinosaurs and Dodos at Aberdeen’s David Welch Winter Gardens.

On Sunday the 5th April between 1 and 4pm, Anna Fancett and I ran a Family Storytelling workshop at Archaeolink. Based on an environmental theme, the workshop targeted children between primaries 4 and 7 but everyone was be made welcome! The workshop attracted a number of families and used seasonal items gathered outside, instruments and puppets to tell stories about the environment we live in! We had some great stories and are looking forward to doing it again some time soon!

Along with the rest of the nation, storytellers have been celebrating Homecoming. One special event on the 16th May in the Lemon Tree saw Word, SC&T and GAS joining together for a ceilidh of stories and song. The event was lead by Stanley Robertson and Grace Banks and was a great success!

Stanley and Pauline performing at the Lemon Tree event in May. Sadly, this was the last time I was to sing together with Stanley who passed away in August. I had been in Stanley’s SC&T Ballad Class for many months and enjoyed every minute learning from him. It is a memory I will treasure.

Also on the 16th May (which was a very busy day for me!) I was puppeteering at Aberdeen University’s Zoology Dept’s “Night At The Museum” event along with members of the department and the Aberdeen Street Entertainers. I’m very please to say that the shadow and black light puppetry show was a complete success! It was a very different type of storytelling from the norm! – Have a look at the “Museum’s At Night” web page here – http://www.culture24.org.uk/places+to+go/museums+at+night+2009/art67629
The 20 minute show of evolution from Man to Molecules, is available for your event. Contact the creators through my details on the contact page.

The Macaulay Institute held an Open Doors event on the 6th June and GAS storytellers, including myself, were there. Have a look at their Open Doors web page for more details. Here is one of the photos from the event – http://www.macaulay.ac.uk/OpenDoors2009/photos.php

 

I had a HUGE amount of fun telling stories at the Glastonbury Festival of Performing Arts. The Glastonbury Festival 2009 was held from Wednesday 24th to Sunday 28th June and I was telling stories in the Earth Lodge in the Green Futures Field on Thurdsay, Friday, Saturday and Sunday along with Christine Willison who has been a regular at Glastonbury for many years, and other storytellers from the British Isles, Anne Lister and Cath Little. I was also telling daily to the kids of Glastonbury in the Kidz field Storytelling tent, ran by Storyteller John Row. Great fun!

The Darwin/Evolution theme continued with a series of events in the David Welch Winter Gardens at the   Duthie Park this summer organized by the Natural History Centre entitled “Darwin:  Discovery, Dinosaurs and Dodos” All events were free and took place weekdays from Monday 13th July to Friday 31st July between 10am and 4pm. On Wednesday 15th, I told stories from Darwin’s various ports of call on his journey on the Beagle, and on Wednesday 22nd, to coincide with the week of Dinosaur events, I told stories about Scotland’s Monsters and Mythological Creatures!

On the 2nd August, I was invited back to the Burn O Vat. Along the route to the Vat from the visitors centre, I told stories inspired by and related to some of the plants and wildlife found along the way. We covered the folklore of buttercups and daisies, heard how a girl saved her village from invaders, heard a good warning about faries and heard about some of the people from Dinnet’s history.  We spent some time in the Vat itself hearing about Gilderoy McGregor and finished off with one of my favourite stories – that of the origin of the most terrible scourge of Scotland – the Midgie!

At the end of August, I was delighted to be telling stories at 2009’s Wizard Festival.  Wizard Festival is now in its third year and (as well as one of my favourite bands!) will host the “Wee Wizards” arena for the second year – with HEAPS of things for kids to do.  Although the weather delayed the festival for a couple of house (and we ended up pitching our tent in the tale end of a hurricane!), the tent was packed with kids and the storytelling was great fun.  I’m already looking forward to next year’s festival!

The next big event was Gadiefest 2009, a weekend of of Storytelling, Drama, Music, Ballads, Arts, Crafts and Poetry – I was very excited to be one of the organisers! The Grampian Association of Storytellers and Archaeolink Prehistory Park, both of which I have been involved with for many years, joined forces to present “Gadiefest 2009 – A Festival of Storytelling and Traditional Arts in the North East of Scotland.”   We hope this will become an annual event and look forward to 2010. Click Here to visit the Gadiefest Web page! 

I was back at Archaeolink on the 15th November to tell stories in the roundhouse for the 4th Experimental Archaeology Conference.  And finally,  I was invited to be guest storyteller at  the Aberdeen University Storytelling Society on the 18th November – it’s always great to be invited along as I always have so much fun telling stories there!

Pauline meets “Auld Craobhie,” the ancient oak from Stanley Robertson’s story
The Grampian Association of Storytellers held their first Satellite Meeting of 2008 on the 23rd February at Archaeolink Prehistory Park. It was a great success and further Satellite Storytelling sessions in Aberdeenshire will be held for children in the future. For further details, see the GAS website or please feel free to contact me. (See “contacts” page). In the photo, Anna gets everyone dancing to the Frog Song!

In June, Stanley Robertson took a group of us out to the Old Road at Lumphanan to meet Auld Craobhie, the ancient oak tree from the story in his book “Exodus to Alford.” We heard a lot of the history of the area, with special relevance to the Scottish Traveller folk who regularly used to camp up the old road. We had a right fine picnic in the shade of Auld Craobhie and sang some of the ancient scots ballads we have been learning from Stanley.

Whilst visiting relatives across the pond in August, I was very pleased to meet up with some members of the Montreal Storyteller’s Guild. We swapped a few stories and it was lovely to see the similarities between the Montreal Guild and our own group of storytellers, GAS. I really enjoyed myself and look forward to hopefully meeting up again some time in the future!

In September, Maggie and I told stories at “Bodgefest” in Dunnottar Quarry. What an amazing setting for storytelling. Hopefully they’ll do it again next year – if so, I’m camping over!

Aberdeen University Storytelling Society which was great fun as always! They’re going to be guest starting at March 2009’s GAS FFF!

My second last event of the year was a Hallowe’en storytelling session at the Burn O’Vat Visitors Centre. Hallowe’en really is my favourite time of year for storytelling – and dressing up! There are so many ghost stories associated with the North East of Scotland. Here’s a link to the event – snh.org.uk and also to the poem I wrote after a childhood experience at the Vat! – Witches At The Burn O Vat

The year’s grand finale was, once again, Wickerman at Archaeolink and the storytelling challenge that is the Haunted Caves! This year we covered the tale of an Aberdeenshire graverobber, The Big Gray Man of Ben MacDhui, Osbarn the Smith and the Aberdeen witch trials – noting specifically the wicked deeds of one Jonet Wishart who was eventually burned for her sins on heading hill. I’ve already got a few plans for 2009, but I’m keeping them to myself for now!

These were just a few of my favourite events from 2008. Throughout the year, I was busy with GAS events (see the GAS web page, link below) and various events at Archaeolink.

Pauline Storytelling in the Green Futures Earth Lodge at 2007’s Glastonbury Festival of Performing Arts
2007s Glastonbury Festival of Performing Arts was my first time in the Green Futures Earth House – it was a wonderful experience, despite all the rain and that mud! Link to the Green Futures storytelling tent at Glastonbury – I was also asked to join John Rowe’s merry band of storytellers in the Kidz field and was convinced that this possibly the most fun pastime in the world!

Then more stories were to be had on the 30th June up on the Kincorth Hill (aka the Gramps!) as part of Aberdeen’s Treefest. Thankfully the sun came out and we had a good audience (both human and canine!) for our tree stories.

On Sunday 12th August 2007 GAS Storytellers coudl be found telling stories at the MRI 2007 Harbour Festival in Stonehaven. http://www.maritime-rescue-institute.org/

My next event was on the 16th October where I told fireside tales out on the shores of Loch Kinord at the Muir of Dinnet Nature Reserve. An audience of adults and children were made comfortable on waterproof beanbags and were warmed by a campfire while they heard tales of Battles, Beasts, Myths and Legends of the area. See the Scottish Natural Heritage web page for details! Or see the press release.

On Wednesday 17th October, I was guest storyteller at the Aberdeen University Storytelling Society. I was made very welcome by the members, judged the ABOC storytelling competition and was very impressed with the stories told!

On the 28th October, I could be found guiding a terrified public through the haunted caves at Archaeolink’s Wickerman event while other GAS storytellers were performing up at the round house.

Other Archaeolink events in 2007’s included the Medieval Craft Fair on the 1st April, Cooking Without Gas on the 22nd April, Prehistoric Fashion on the 3rd June, Metal Mayhem on the 16th June, Myths and Legends on the 7th October See Archaeolink’s Web Page for upcoming events. The centre is closed to the public from the end of October (re-opening 1st April 2008) but will be open to schools and corporate events over the winter.