Spinning Tales

EILEEN RAE reports on the ‘a-b, Creative Routes’ Literature and Storytelling project in Argyll and Bute.

THE ARGYLL AND BUTE area covers the second largest geographical area of any Scottish Local Authority, covering an area of 690,900ha, with a coastline longer than that of France, with over 3,000km of coast and 25 inhabited islands.

Each of the four administrative areas has created individual profiles through a diverse range of cultural events. Argyll is a place of storytellers, songmakers, poets, novelists and historians. Argyll’s tales, stories and fables, from the historic to the contemporary, link island and mainland, creating a strong identity of place and time that reaches beyond its population out to a wider audience around the world.

Argyll and Bute Council has always had a strong tradition of supporting storytelling and literature events through its school programme, with support from Live Literature Scotland. Storytelling and literature events have played a part in the programmes of organisations and venues such as Kilmartin House and CREAR, and festivals such as the Ardfern and Craobh Haven Arts Festival, and the Cowal Walking and Arts Festival, while Iona once hosted its own storytelling festival.

The Council has developed a regular storytelling programme for children and adults at Corran Halls, Oban, featuring not only Scottish storytellers, but also storytellers from around the world. from Ghana to New Zealand. July’s programme for children featured storyteller Bob Pegg, who presented tales and legends of real and mythical creatures accompanied by some his collection of old and strange musical instruments.

The venue will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Hans Christian Anderson in October for National Tell a Story Day.

A main focus of the ‘a-b, Creative Routes’ programme for children is to encourage them to tell their own stories.

Following the success of storytelling sessions for children in the Linda McCartney Memorial Garden at Campbeltown Library, storytelling will continue to feature as a regular part of the programme all year round in the new Library designed by Page and Park that will open at the end of the year.

The ‘a-b, Creative Routes’ initiative aims to develop literature and storytelling events further by working with a variety of organisations and venues such as Cove Park, Easdale Island Trust, The Columba Centre on Islay, Mull Theatre, Jura Hall and The Smiddy at Strachur.

Discussions are under way to develop storytelling in the unique setting of Auchindrain Museum, and a proposed schools traditional dance project is currently exploring the use of art and craft and storytelling and literature in historic buildings or unusual locations.

August will see a return visit to Argyll by Creative Scotland award winner Ian Stephen with a storytelling programme on sea stories, which will tour to the Corran Halls in Oban, Easdale Island, and the Templar Arts and Leisure Centre, Tarbert, as well as visits to local schools.

Once again the Council is working closely with Bute’s Healthy Living initiative on the annual Isle of Bute Poetry Festival in September. This year, the new Healthy Living Centre will be completed in time to play host to two poetry events and in the run up to the Festival staff will conduct several poetry workshops in the community.

A main focus of the ‘a-b, Creative Routes’ programme for children is to encourage them to tell their own stories. Recent events in the Cowal area have included “How to tell your own Story” in association with the Cowal Children’s Creative Workshop held at The Queen’s Hall, Dunoon, and “Story Tree (If you were a tree, which tree would you be?)” with American storyteller Beth Cross.

After a selection of stories, storyteller Ewan McVicar continued with a workshop allowing children in various groups to work together to develop their skills in storytelling along with a variety of puppets and noisemakers.

At the end of July, Beth Cross took an all day storytelling and craft workshop at the Benmore Botanical Gardens near Dunoon. An initial storytelling walk around the Gardens with the tales and secrets associated with the trees was followed by groups identifying their favourite trees and incorporating them into a story that was then translated into characters using cones, leaves, twigs and “finds” from around the Gardens.

After a full day, the only complaint from the children was that the next time they wanted the day to be longer!

Eileen Rae is the Arts Development Officer for Argyll and Bute

© Eileen Rae, 2005