Time of our Lives

Time of Our Lives at Kaleidoscope Sevenoaks

2010-06-10T08:06:00.000-07:00

Laura, Tim and myself installed the film at Kaleidoscope in Sevenoaks today. It's on for 3 days - until June 12th.

The Tour Begins

2010-05-21T02:43:00.000-07:00

The film is finished (apart from some small alterations to sequencing and sound, so not small at all, will probably take me a good few days). The Angley School film is being shown first at the Flix 'n Pix festival taking place at the Kino Digital in Hawkhurst on Wednesday at 2pm.

The rest of the tour takes in Maidstone Museum and Art Gallery, Kaleidoscope Gallery Sevenoaks and Tonbridge Library.

Young Carers - Tonbridge

2010-02-22T01:56:00.000-08:00

Brilliant, funny, creative, intelligent - we did two workshops with the Young Carers in Tonbridge, one filming, the other they created their storyboard, decided what they wanted cut in and out of the final film and designed their own credits which they filmed on super 8. Many thanks to Beth for organising and hosting the sessions.

Age Concern and Young Carers

2010-02-15T01:06:00.000-08:00

It's a shame but the young carers and age concern clients just couldn't be together for their workshop. They operate at very different times of the day and with the best will in the world it just was not practical.

However I went and spoke to the clients of Age Concern in West Malling and filmed them talking about their leisure time when they were young and what time means to people, young and old. I've never met a more chatting, noisy, gregarious group of people.

I showed the young carers the footage from the clients of age concern and the final film will be taken back to Age Concern for a screening. The two groups will meet through the medium of the moving image.

Edenbridge Workshop - No. 3

2010-02-15T00:51:00.000-08:00

A little disappointed that there weren't any young people last week and also Rose couldn't turn up, we've scheduled another workshop for half term. This time audrey has coajoled any young people hanging around the estate to turn up for the workshop and we are unindated with them. Roly and his friend turn up spurred on by the opportunity to browse through the photos from the Museum.

It's brillant, there's chat about the really important stuff, about why older people feel intimated by younger people who hang around street corners, what the young people feel about older people and what it's like to be young today. Their issues at the end of the day turn out to be similar ones to those as the older people. You'll have to see the film to find out what was discussed.

Edenbridge Visit No.2

2010-02-09T00:38:00.000-08:00

2nd visit to Edenbridge today. Not hopeful that the young people will be there, but at least Roly and Rose will be. Pick up Laura and we head to the Eden Valley Museum to borrow their pictures of the high street at the turn of the 20th Century. This tool was put together by Jane as a way for people to see the change over the last 100 years of the types of shops that have inhabited Edenbridge.

When we get to the community centre, only Roly is there, but we film him talking through the photos and remembering incidents and memories from his life growing up here as a boy. He also plays a couple of tunes on his harmonica which is great and will make an excellent soundtrack from the Edenbridge cut of the film.

Edenbridge Workshops - No.1

2010-02-02T00:29:00.000-08:00

Audrey Batechlor is a star. She's the stalwart of the Spittals Cross Estate, ditto for Jane Higgs who runs the Eden Valley Museum.

My first workshop at Edenbridge is with a couple of young people and Roly and Rose, two older people who live in the village, both are brillant. It's a little strained at first, two young people sitting around a table with older people who they've never met before, and coupled with the fact this person who turns up calls themselves an artist and gets them talking about what they think of each other and then asks them to interview each other film and video!

Some lovely comments when the young boy asks Roly what he used to do when he was younger, as it's boring in Edenbridge and nothing to do, he was looking for guidance! Roly talked about playing in the fields and woods pretending to be robin hood or game of cowboys and indians. But ultimately Roly gained cool points when he announced that nowadays he has a Sony WII and plays on that occasionally.

To be continued next week.....

The follow up workshop at Harmony

2010-02-01T13:49:00.001-08:00

The footage everyone shot at the first workshop was great. The super 8 proved a hit. Holding a heavy camera that made a noise everytime you pressed the trigger, not recording any sound and having to manually zoom and focus each shot demanded concentration.

At the second workshop we concentrated on a more formal interviewing style, with the younger ones in the hot seat this time, and Di and John doing the interviewing. Being drama enthusiasts, they loved the camera and a few really enjoyed the 'performance' element.

Harmony Workshop

2010-02-01T13:29:00.000-08:00

It was great to get started with the first workshop at Harmony Variety Arts Club on January 22nd. A great turnout with 9 younger people and 2 from the older generation.

Harmony is a fantastic variety arts club run and setup by John Kingdom with help from volunteers and co-producers from the local community.

Di and John are stalwarts of the club and they already have a good relationship with the younger people but it was interesting for them to sit down and talk about their perceptions of each other.

At the first workshop, we sat and discussed the project and had a general chat about the perceptions they held of each other and then I introduced the media to them, video and super 8. This was framed in the context of time and how they represent time. We talked about fast forward, freeze frame, rewind and slow motion, making comparisons to each might conceptualise time.

They then split into groups and set about interviewing each other about their lives, using the different technologies.

A well overdue update

2010-02-01T13:22:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I posted, but it's a taken a long time to get the groups organised with suitable dates for everyone. Workshops were scheduled for December in Edenbridge then cancelled and at the beginning of the year for Harmony but then the snow and a major power cut but us back a couple of weeks. Getting young people and older people together at the same time has also proved challenging, along with an ambitious project remit.

However, some good things have happened. A connection with the Hawkhurst Community Partnership and Kino Hawhurst, a working group for their annual film festival and a link with Angley School means that the films will hopefully get a showing at the Flixs and Pixs Film Festival in May at Kino Hawkhurst.

Retired!

2009-10-01T12:19:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-01T02:10:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-01T01:41:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-23T20:05:00.000-07:00

....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

2009-09-23T19:30:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-23T19:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-23T17:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-23T10:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-02T11:09:00.000-07:00

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