A wonderful start to the week here in Kirkham, I received a lovely warm welcome from St Michael’s church who have allowed me and Mike (who is carrying out the historical research for the project) to peruse their fascinating new historical archive.
We found some beautiful old photographs of Hillside House among other historic buildings, and have even borrowed the font and style of an old advertisement for Hillside House for all of our posters as we were so struck by it. It was actually remarkably close to all of our original design and the same colour scheme of pink… so it was clearly a sign!
Look out for the grand opening of the archive to the public during Adrian’s Saturday breakfast event 29th January.
I will also be attending that day to continue my quest to uncover stories of Kirkham, and trying not to get ketchup on my wedding dress…
It is early days in the project which we call the Research & Development days. I am taking in as much about the town as I can and talking to absolutely anyone who would like to, to try and get a sense of Kirkham’s people, it’s present and it’s past – these will be the key elements to creating a unique folk tale dedicated to the town.
Some wonderfully helpful people I have met so far include staff from United Reformed Church who showed us their display of Club Day photographs and told me a little about the origins of Club Day and the relationship between the fabric that was being woven in the mills and the fabric for the beautiful formal dresses on display. The United Reformed Church will be the finale venue for our storytelling performance on Saturday 12th February – watch this space and the social media for more details.
I am extremely interested in the weaving history of Kirkham and ‘the last loom’ (sounds like a story already) – this has already got my creativity buzzing – many good mediaeval folk tales feature the loom as a somewhat magical instrument and from looking at some of the finery made by Kirkham’s looms I’d be inclined to agree.
Everybody from the Kirkham Cultural Consortium has been a massive help to advise on which venues and community events I could come along to to introduce the project, spin a yarn and try to recruit people for my one-to-one story recordings. I am doing a lot of group events so I think these one-to-ones will offer a chance to ask some deeper questions and can also be very cathartic for participants. As the great Maya Angelou says: “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
St Michaels Family Kitchen were kind enough to let me tag along this week and two members of the Kirkham Cultural Consortium kindly escorted me. I prepared a telling of a folk classic ‘Stone Soup’ in keeping with the kitchen theme, and three little ones acted out all the townspeople adding their ingredients into the big pot of ‘stone soup’. The story is about community and sharing what little you have to make more for the many. One particularly imaginative child popped a lollipop and a yorkshire pudding in. The soup in the story is meant to end up the most delicious soup anyone in the town has ever tasted, but not sure if I’ll be trying that recipe at home!
After introducing the project to a walking group and discussing stories over coffee in Book & Bean (by new favourite haunt – thanks Elaine) one of the members sent me a brilliant story inspired by the character The Bride of Kirkham, involving first loves, broken hearts and fast carts (and unfortunate, untimely ends…).
At the end of the week I joined a Phoenix Rising organised mindful walk and saw a part of Kirkham I hadn’t seen before by the scout hut and allotments, lots of lovely dogs and nature. This really is an excellent programme of events and at such a crucial time. I had coffee with the ladies afterwards and they swapped stories of their travels in and out of Kirkham.
As they shared their tales my mind was thinking of the sailing cloth made by the looms of Kirkham, how far it must have travelled and how interconnected the industry here is with huge historical events. The cloth like stories being woven and repurposed, gathering speed and marks along the way. How Kirkham is connected to so many other places, both for individuals and through it’s textile industry.
We’ve received some fantastic memories of Kirkham this week to kirkhamstorytellers@gmail.com, and one couple have offered to restage their first kiss for us. This is a fantastic idea and one that has come directly from the people which I love, if anybody else wants to restage their first kiss please come forward, make yourselves known!
Finally, a bit of a deeper note, towards the end of the week a couple of conversations and stories shared came up about grief and recent losses. I really hope that this project can offer some catharsis and that as we are looking to gather love stories people who have lost loved ones know they are so welcome to get involved and tell us about them, as these brave people did this week. After all this project is about love, but what is grief if not love persevering? (Not a literary reference – recent series WanderVision but a fantastic quote that I live by).