Acts of Trust, a project initiated by Western Isles Libraries, won the multi-arts category in the British Awards for Excellence in Storytelling. The results of nationwide voting were announced in a ceremony in York, last Saturday evening. The project was devised by Ian Stephen, as storyteller and Christine Morrison as visual artist. It was supported by Shetland Arts, who developed and administered a series of five Reader in Residence posts throughout Scotland, last year.

Workshops carried out with schools in the Western Isles were based on three key stories:

The Bag of Winds – from The Odyssey of Homer; The Three Knots – a tradition form the Monach islands; and Kingsfish – Ian’s story based on a tradition recorded in the J F Campbell collection of folklore. These resulted in a huge number of drawings. A selection of these images was bound with short texts into a hand-printed and hand-bound book.

The two artists would like to thank all at Western Isles Libraries who were involved in the project, the school teachers who gave such strong support and the pupils themselves who produced their own versions of the stories. Donald Smith, director of the Scottish Storytelling Centre first commissioned Ian to tell a section from the Odyssey as part of an ambitious re-telling of the whole work by tellers from Mediterranean islands, Ireland and Scottish islands.

“We were also privileged to be there when Sheila Stewart was presented with the lifetime achievement award. She accepted it on behalf of the wider community of travelling people who have been the holders of so much of our culture of songs and stories. Sheila sang a g enerous and humane song of friendship to end the official(ish) part of the evening and we were conscious of the happy ghost of Hamish Henderson in the company.

Warm thanks to everyone who voted for the project –

there was a huge number of votes cast but we were told that the voting was neck and neck in our category so every single vote really did count.

Please have a look back at the BASE page and have another look at some of the other projects described –

such as Marion Kenny’s wide-ranging work with Celtic Connections and many musicians, also available as a double CD.

Another Scot, Michael Kerrins won the male storyteller of the year award.”

Source: Ian Stephen