Retired!

Retired! That’s a word I find quite hard to get my head around.  For me retirement will be when I retire from life, hopefully in many years to come.

Life for is working, creating and above all, sharing life taught skills with those who want to learn.  I once looked at myself and saw myself as a failure.  Through my life I have tried all manner of things and never quite made it.  “What ever it is”. Maybe it’s becoming rich and famous, however, neither one has interested me much.

Now I can look back and say thank God I went through it all, because each time I failed I learned from it and tried something else.

Everything has now come together and I realise that without the T shirts I have collected through my life I couldn’t do the work I so love doing now.  I am founder member of a group that dedicates it’s self to giving after school lessons in performing and associated arts to those less privileged in society.

At 70 next birthday, reasonably fit although, suffering from the odd ailment, I have practically built a mini theatre single handed, which is there to give those in life that are normally let out for one reason or the other the chance to become a star.

My day starts at 8am and goes on till about 10.30pm on most days, Sunday I start between 9 & 10am and finish between 6.0 and 8.0pm.   After that the rest of the day is my own.

Normally, as I said, I start at about 8am go up to the complex and unlock; when the hirer arrives I go back home, take my 8 year old to school.  “Yes I did say 8” and then back to the hall to do the cleaning if the hall is free.  This means I have to wet wash the stage, the auditorium floor and the toilets; wash the toilet seats and pans sinks etc.  Clean the tea room and wash any china about.  When that’s over with I can get on with making props and scenery, that is if there are no repairs to the buildings, or plumbing, or anything else that needs my attention.

I try to fit my letter and script writing in whilst things I’ve made are drying.  If I’ve time I try to read up on funding that may be available so I spend a lot of time form filling.

Hold on a minute I’ve got to go and clear up the grounds around the theatre, so much litter blows onto our land, it’s even worse when the trees shed their leaves.

On occasions I have to go to meetings, what a pain to sit there when I could be doing so much more.  When the meetings happen, I’m like the white rabbi from Alice in Wonderland, I always leave it to the last minute, then it’s I’m lat I’m late, for a very important date.

At 3pm I leave to pick up my son, drop him off at home then return to the hall by 3.30pm until about 5.0pm to do more cleaning if some ones been in, or do some more props, then I lock and go home.  More often than not I cook the dinner that I some how found time to go and buy some time during the day earlier.

By 6.45pm I’m back at the complex opening up for one or other of our evening workshops.  This includes mainly keeping about fifty or so young people under control or teaching one thing or another with the help of many other volunteers.  We finish rehearsing at 9.30pm, when I may tidy a little if nothings on in the morning or more if there is a hiring.

I get home about 10pm, if I’ve no more letters to write, I settle down and unwind with a nice brandy and American.  Goodnight.

Life is for living

Ife is for giving.

If you like me are lucky and have the will and the chance.

Let your learning become teaching, another life to enhance.

John Alfred Kingdon

Older Persons Day

Today is Older Persons Day and John Kingdon at Harmony Variety Arts Club will be blogging his typical day. 

This is in response to show what an 'older person' does on a daily basis and also slightly inspired by some of the exhibits in Eden Valley Museum - a typical day in the life of.....

The project will try to work through some of these preconceptions as I'll be working with digital video with the older people and super 8 film with the young people exploring issues of time metaphorically and physically through the material and apparatus.

Eden Valley Museum

It's been suggested that I work with the Spittal Cross Estate, with both young and old and that I talk to Jane Higgs the Hon. Curator at the Eden Valley Museum.  An independant museum housed in a beautiful old building on the high street.

Jane's already been collecting oral histories from people that lived on both the Stangrove Estate and Spittals Cross Estate and was instrumental, along with West Kent Xtra in hosting the 40 and 50 year celebrations on 19th September.

There's a temporary exhibition on about how the estates came into being, the feeling of the local people at the time, the protests about Londoners swamping their rural idyll and the locals houses that were knocked down to make way for the new homes.  It's a great snapshot of rural life in the 1950's and also what living conditions were like for the people that lived and worked in London at this time.

Rural industries included cricket ball making, a tannery and obviously beer making and farming.  I was particularly struck by a case containing personal artefacts, dolls, diaries, notebooks, photographs and maps from a local farm and the farmers wife's diary, detailing only the amount of milk she sold each date and a note about their favourite cows Buttercup and Snow White.

February 20th 1959

....On Wednesday the first lorries carrying an advance party of workmen rumbled through the mist and drew up in Stangrove Park where the housing development is to take place.

Courier Newspaper

On the Way to Edenbridge

On the map, Edenbridge doesn't look a million miles away from Sevenoaks.  But as soon as you turn off the A25 on the B2042 there's a sense of entering deepest darkest Kent.   Twisting turney lanes bring meaning to the term a country mile which is re-enforced by sequential signs first detailing 'Edenbridge 2 3/4 miles' followed by 'Edenbridge 3 miles' a bend later.

When I first called Audrey who runs community groups on the Spittal Cross Estate and Jane who is the Hon. Curator at the Eden Valley Museum,  I was immediately excited by news of a reunion between people who once lived on the factory estates - built to house families enticed down from London by companies promising a better way of life in terms of new housing after the war.  So in my mind I was visioning estates with sensibilities of Ebenezer Howard's ideology.

Google Spittals Cross Estate, Edenbridge and see what comes up.  I grew up in a council house and am a little tired of peoples, in some cases, mis-conceptions of social housing and the type of people that live there.

Ebenezer Howard

Edenbridge definitely shows signs of accommodating a town of workers and their families.  Community centres, the Edenbridge centre, primary schools encased in the centre of a picturesque village high street, doctors surgerys, health and leisure centres and the best chips I've had in ages.

Musings

Spending time, leisure time, being on time, time wasting...... museum objects??????
Need posters.........

Thinking about artists who use the poster and text

Bob and Roberta Smith
bob and roberta smith offical website

Mark Titchner
source and copyright

Age Concern - West Malling

The next group on my list is Age Concern in West Malling.  I met with an very enthusiastic Day Centre Manager Becky who thinks that a group of her clients will be really interested in taking part in the project.  With a hairdressers, cafe and common room on site, this will be a really good venue.  Need to engage a young persons group to work with them.

Maidstone Museum

We were hoping to get Maidstone museum on board but unfortuately they're packing up their collection in readiness for a £2m English Heritage extension. 

Maidstone - Harmony Community Arts Centre

I met John Kingdom tonight, the main man behind Harmony Community Arts Centre and a legend.

I don't quite know where to start explaining what these guys do, although the clues are all there in the title I guess, but it goes nowhere near really explaining what they're all about.

John started Harmony, on his own 10 years ago in the back of a pub. They moved to a run down hall in Mangravet Avenue in  2004 and transformed it into an amazing variety club and theatre where they rehearse and stage musicals.

John's built the scenery, staging, does all the managment, sings, acts. I'm sure he wouldn't mind me saying he's not the youngest of men now with his own fair share of health issues but he spends roughly 70 hours a week at the theatre.

Enough about John what about all the mums and volunteers and his own family that help keep the place going and all the children that live on and around Mangravet who take part in life at Harmony and love it.

There are some heart rending stories about the achievements that some of the children have mastered. Many have gone on to study theatre and drama at University and all return to see Harmony and John.

This is all beginning to sound like a homage to John, and it is but, I'm going to work with all the people that work behind the scenes at Harmony on this project as they range from the over 60's down to 11 year olds.

Lets start at the beginning

I've been commissioned by FrancisKnight to work on an inter-generational film project between young and older people on behalf of West Kent Arts Partnership (Sevenoaks, Maidstone, Tonbrigde and Malling and Tunbridge Wells District and Borough Councils).

The idea is to run workshops and along with the respective areas museum collections, film the perceptions (using both digital and super 8 ) that each group have of each other over several weeks.  The outcome will be a touring exhibition of their responses and our time together.

Press Releases:
Sevenoaks District Council
Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council