A mirror reflecting trees

A Ribble Celebration 

Still, dark,
A mirror reflecting trees,
Slow, deep,
A cold safety for trout

the river's king?

Bold, the schools that braved the rain and mud
Brave, the children who read their stories and poems
Lively, the company who performed their animals
Running, rushing, racing, the swirlng spiral of people who made our river.
Muddy, the groundsheets that filed my car afterwards!.

the river's queen?

On Thursday 26th September, 6 classes from 4 different schools wound their watery ways through the streets of Barnoldswick to join the Ribble Rivers Trust and Creeping Toad at Victory Park for a celebration of our rivery creativity of the previous week. Drawing together new understanding of river animals and water safety gained through sessions with RRT, knowledge of the shapes and flow of rivers through school work and a bit of messy creativity with the Toad, our scientist/artists had worked as separate classes to create elements of the river as a whole

We met swarms of small river animals, infesting the fingers of Coates Lane children. There were colourful flags from Gisburn Rd giving us river life to futter and flap above our heads. There was a flood of larger creatures who could carry us down to the river mouth where the sharks and turtles waited for the river to empty its cargo of adventurers into the sea (thank you, B’swick C of E!)
But we explored rivers in other ways, too, and we saw the strange and wonderful legendary inhabitants of the river from festering Mummies to River Princesses, Monsters and Marvels

not a company to mess with...

under the bridge....

Our celebration was balanced between wind, mud and approaching storms and we didn’t hear all that we coulld or see all that we might (extra stories may appear here shortly!) but we laughed together, swam through streams together, and stamped a river’s whirlpool into the playing field together

Thank you all the children, staff and artists of our schools and thanks to Ribble Rivers Trust for setting it all up!

Our River Friends

Ribble Rivers TrustPrimary Schools:
Gisburn Rd
Coates Lane
St Joseph's RC 
Barnoldswick C of E

wind enough to blow the river away

Photos credits:
Artwork on its own: Gordon MacLellan
Photos including children c/o Ribble Rivers Trust

stepping stones

The Stepping Stone riddle

stories from a river's running, part 3 

 

 The river continues to run, and the stories continue to grow, with new tales today from the storymakers and artists of Class 4 Gisburn Rd Primary School

Through stories and photos, we gathered ideas for mythological characters: who might live in your chosen place on the river”. Stories unfolded, building lifestories, hopes, dreams and despairs for our charcaters. then our characters were transformed into flags and we saw bridges and fish, red witches with long fingers and a shoal of swimming fish….

 

bridge flag in development

1. There is
An ancient bridge
Over an ancient river
Where an ancient perch
Swims in a waterfall’s pool.
This is an enchanted fish
Who curses anyone
Who tries to catch its friends.

Try to catch me?
Try to catch my friends?
You’ll never catch us!
You’ll never catch anything ever again!

2. Seaweed hair and dead worm lips

with crab slippers on his crabby feet,

Rapid is a thief who will pick the pockets

of anyone or anything who comes too near the riverbank

flag reveal

3. The red shark is lonely. His only friend is the red witch. “I want a friend, but I am alone. No-one wants me. So I get angry and I see red…” 

4. The land of Tyvon
After many centuries, there still stands on the wasteland shore, beside an enchanted river, an enchanted hut and in that hut is an enchanted book. In that river is an enchanted breed of fish and the enchantment of the fish is found on page 2850 of the enchanted book. The enchantment means that these fish are healing fish, healing people with their Tyvonion spells

5. Don’t catch my fish,
Don’t shoot my birds,
If you don’t solve my riddle
you will be turned into a stepping stone at dawn
For our beautiful river.
(*What is the riddle, you ask? Another story, for another day!)

Working with the Ribble Rivers Trust, this is a week of workshops, building to a celebration of River Tales next week, sharing artwork that celebrates the drama, mystery and biodiversity of a river. Classes involved have visited a local river, and with Creeping Toad are using that knowledge to create artwork and next week will bring all that creativity together

With many thanks to all our artists from 

 Year 4 of Gisburn Rd Primary School

not quite finshed

Graceful white swans

Graceful white swans

stories from a river's running, part 2 

salmon

Today’s river adventures grew in Coates Lane Primary School where Class 3 dived into a river of pictures nad words, playing with colours and patterns and descriptions. We created animals as we went, making small puppets to give us a rive rof creatures. There were swans and snakes; eels, otters and newts. Further afield, as our river met the sea, we met dolphins and flying fish, a turtle, a sea dragon and gliding out of the dark and dangerous depths, a fire squid. Lacing it all together from the sea’s deeps to the streams shallow gravel beds were the salmon, carrying stories between mountain top and ocean floor



Working with the Ribble Rivers Trust, this is a week of workshops building up to a celebration next week, a gathering of River Tales that capture the excitement, drama and biodiversity of a river

 The salmon speaks:

 The water runs
From mossy mountains and
Over rugged rocks,
Round rocks, where
Red rubies and
Excellent emeralds and
Pink pearls, pure pearls
Lie in the gravel of the river bed.

Magical moss wraps the rocks,
But super, slippery, smooth stones
and big brilliant boulders
Fill the river bank.
There is sand, smooth sand, slippery silver sand
Under the water
Where perfect pink and purple pebbles and
Glistening green emeralds gleam.

You can rest by this river where the kingfishers perch on branches
And graceful white swans swim,
Sliding over silent, glimmering waters
Reflecting lights,
Glittering like glistening jewels
Jagged gems and golden stones
Shining under the river’s mirror,
As the river races on
Towards the exciting, flowing waterfalls

Sleek otters play in the waves
Chasing swift salmon
While a slippery salamander sits on a stone
And watches
As a tough turtle trundles
Over the sand and down to the waves,
Where he flaps his flippers
And suddenly slips away, swiftly into the
Welcoming waves.

flying fish

many thanks to the staff and pupils of Coates Lane Primary School for their hospitality and to the artists and storytellers of Class 3 

for their hard work and wonderful ideas!

Tales from a river's running

A Giant Girl with Rainbow Eyes

Stories from a river’s running

stepping stones

shark and smiling eels

This week, I am working with various schools in Barnoldswick in East Lancashire. Here, we are combining art and storymaking with science, using information children gathered on river-dipping workshops to inspire tales, transformation, flag making and puppet shows….

On our first day today, St Joseph’s RC Primary, set out to find the characters from lost myths that might, or might not, or really should, live in the waters that run through the town. The were rver princesses, unicorns, trolls. there was a water-witch, a golden duck and several dragons...

Working with the Ribble Rivers Trust, we are building up to a celebration next week, a gathering of River Tales that capture the excitement, drama and biodiversity of a river

The Stepping Stone Troll
"Curling, curving water,

Swirling, whirling,


Shallow water,
Fast water,
Running round moss-slippery rocks.
Blance carefully,
Over my stepping stones,
Walk if you can,
Run if you dare,
Cartwheel if you feel
That you really want to die
and cross the stones if you can pay my fee”


Meander speaks
Gurgling water,
Curling, swirling water,
Fast water,
Curving round corners,
Tumbling over rocks,
A peaceful place to sail.

Sometimes.
Risk your life here other times
When the rain comes,

And the mud slides,
Capsizing boats,
Washing people
Over the waterfall
And down to the sea.

The Ducks
Water falling,
A beautiful scene,
Gliding fast,
Past green trees,
Crashing down round,
Hard rough rocks,
Where ducks wait
Sitting
On round rough rocks.
White ducks laying golden eggs,
Goden ducks will hatch
From golden eggs
Gold as the rarest treasure
The only golden ducks
In all the world
These ducks are hunted.
My ducks.

 

a water witch smiles

many thanks to the staff and pupils of St Joseph's 

and especially the artists and storymakers of Class 4!

Toadwords creeping out...

 

Toads are breaking out all over

- or maybe breaking in?

Over the last year, I've been contributing to various other blogs and journals. I thought a list of opening paragraphs and links might prove interesting….

Wild Storytelling

June 2015: a piece on storytelling and landscapes for Highland Environment Network's newsletter issue on environmental art

It begins….

Telling tales of wonder and delight, stories to enchant, intrigue and captivate. Telling tales to draw people into the landscapes, plants and animals around them. Or at least that's what I hope I do. It's certainly what I set out to do but as with most creative activities we share with the public (or pursue as individuals) in the end, like water and weeds, the creativity finds its own path....

"…on this day that hopes for rainbows"

Using the environment to inspire poetry

May 2015, a piece for the Natural Connections OutdoorLearning blog.

It begins…

We started with a venue we all valued and a belief that children’s language grew more by direct experience than by just reading, listening and being told about things. Then we stirred into the mix Simon Armitage’s recent translation of “Gawain and the Green Knight” with its beautiful sense of rhythm and movement. A pinch of Michael Porpurgo’s Gawain followed and a grant from the Clore Duffield Foundation coordinated by Mid-Pennine Arts and we were ready to bake, with myself  - environmental storyteller, artist and general creator-of-celebrations - as the spoon that stirs the pot.

A River In The Classroom worksheets

Musician Steve Brown and myself produced a set of worksheets for the Ribble Rivers Trust inspired by the workshops that were followed through "The Hatching" blogs in 2015 and 2016

  

You can download a version of the worksheets here

A River in the Classroom worksheets

There are 5 worksheets in this set offering everything from how to compose your own watery soundscapes to techniques for building your own folding river. While these are river-specific activities the techniques and principles involved could be applied to a much wider range of themes.

Over the hills and far away….

July 2015, and I had the excitement of reciting one of my poems for a film about fell-running by Jimmy Hyland.  The film is a lovely few minutes of watching, so please tune in, relax and imagine yourself up in the hills….

I hope the film link works!

Pym Chair above the Dale of Goyt

 A broad broken bow of a bridge:

June 2014, another piece about working with poetry, this time for an Environmental Education journal based in Brazil. The link will take you to a copy of the article. Look at the rest of the journal - but you might need to some Spanish or maybe Portuguese!

http://www.periodicos.ulbra.br/index.php/txra/article/view/1132

It begins…

A broad, broken bow of a bridge:

using classic literature and outdoor sites to inspire poetry with children

Once upon a time…

This story began some 700 years ago when a scribe in a monastery started writing - or recording - the narrative poem that was to become known as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Mixing Pagan imagery with Christian morality tale and straightforward heroic adventure, Gawain has survived the centuries since then and stands now as a classic text of early English literature

Packhorse Bridge at Wycoller Country Park

The Hatching 9: trying to write a river

The Last Hatching

21st and 22nd May 2015

"trying to write a river,

along the lines of the water"

  

 

ripple and flow

Fast water,

Crashing water

Dropping,

Over green rocks,

Into fierce, deep pools,

Strong trout leaping

With a twist of a tail.

Swimming up the fast flow,

River pushes,

Trout swims,

Swimming, swimming,

Keeps on swimming,

Through the rapids,

Through the pools,

Over the waterfalls

To lay golden eggs in a gravel redd.

(Holy Trinity School)

last view of a diving trout

The river ran for a final time in this sequence of workshops last week. The trout the classes had hatched as part of their Ribble Rivers Trust project had gone to meet their destinies in the rivers around Burnley but we had proposed these extra sessions to try taking our activities, like migrating trout, to leap the next waterfall or brave the last rapids

Steve and I worked with Heasandford Primary School( 3 Year 4 classes) to take the work they had already done and skills they had already developed further. Teams of musicians looked at ways of uniting their three songs, while the artists took the pop-up planning techniques we'd used before to go over the top and make a series of popups, each one being about 130cm long and combining to give us a folded river almost as long as the school hall

In Holy Trinity School, a comment in an earlier workshop had inspired a "the river as a beatbox" session. We looked at pictures, talked about their trout, drew pictures, experimented with voices and instruments and gradually built a score that mixed words, patterns and pictures and became the voice of the river…..(pictures of musicians pending)

Recordings of both final pieces will follow!

Songs from the earlier sessions with these schools

Heasandford Song 4.2
Heasandford song 4.1
Heasandford song 4.3

Holy Trinity River Brun song

with many thanks to the artists and musicians of Heasandford and Holy Trinity Primaries and to the members of the Ribble Rivers Trust who committee who gave us such an appreciative audience!

The Hatching 8: inhale the future

The case of the curious trout

Ightenhill Primary School

19th March 2015

the riverbank will shelter the curious trout

Inhale the future
Exhale the past

Life moves quickly

Gotta swim fast

We reach the end of the river for now. The last workshop of the series for the moment. Here at Ightenhill,  Steve and I met our last group and celebrating with our last song and unfolding our last river

The Hatching 2015 has almost fulfilled its mission. This year 10 schools hatched trout eggs as part of the Ribble Rivers Trust's hatch and release scheme for Burnley rivers

My colleague Steve Brown and I have visited 8 of those schools, working with our Trout-keepers to offer a creative take on the hatching process. 

The fingerlings of Ightenhill go into their river next week and those brave little fish will inhale and exhale their way out into the rocks and rapids and racing waters of the Ribble Valley catchment

All our workshops this year have been great fun (they were last year, as well! see The Hatching ) but the Ightenhill trout-keepers seemed to have an extra degree of wonderful wateryness with some delightful fish-dancing to accompany their singing and some beautiful rippling water patterns in their pop-ups

Bossy bigger brothers, I'm not

Sharing my food with you no more

Gonna have to catch it, so I

Cannot be a lazy trout

Magnificent manouvres, we've

Got to dart away

Predators are coming, slyly

Pike will stalk us every day

Think I'm gonna cry now, teardrops

Run like rapids down my face

Reflecting on the river, all these

Memories will not float away

Lyrics are from the Ightenhill Trout Song, a recording of which and pics of rare and exotic fish-dancing will will post here very soon!

Many thanks to the Trout-keeprs, artists, musicians, 

composers and dancers of Ightenhill

The Hatching 7: Journey to the Sea

Journey To The Sea

Burnley St Peter's C of E Primary School

19th March 2015

our trout will enter the river about here

Final aquarium days now for our fingerlings and they are pushing the limits of their tanks. There is a sense of fish ready for a longer swim, for wilder waters, for freedom…and also the knowledge of danger

The Hatching 2015 has almost fulfilled its mission. This year 10 schools hatched trout eggs as part of the Ribble Rivers Trust's hatch and release scheme for Burnley rivers

My colleague Steve Brown and I have visited 8 schools, working with our Trout-keepers to offer a creative take on the hatching process. 

Our team of trout-keepers at St Peter's, split into two groups and while one started the Journey to the Sea song, the others started thinking about the friends, foods and enemies our fish might meet.

concentration is called for...

...and the results are worth celebrating!

upstream to the hills and old bridges? or down to the sea?

River animals unfolded as finger puppets

Great Crested Grebe - and smaller great crested grebe!

and river crowns

an angry frog on a river crown

The Journey To The Sea
Chorus
We're going on a journey to the sea (sea)

Swim along and let's be free, (free)

There's 10 of  us on our way

We'll get there come what may, HEY!

We are little brown trout,

This is the first day we've been out,

We start at the river's source,

High up on the mythical moors.

Five fish lose their way,

At the fork in the river they swim astray,

"Oh, no!" the fry did cry

"We didn't get to say goodbye!"

Splash! Splosh! The fingerlings dive

How many more trout will survive?

Twist and turn down a waterfall

Another one lost in the plunge pool

Here comes fisherman John
A couple of worms and two trout gone
.... 

Out to the ocean swims our friend

Crooky has reached the river's end

"I'm proud", the trout sings loud

"I was lost but now I'm found!"

The River Singers, 1

River Singers, 2

To hear the whole song, you will need to follow the link that will be posted here very soon!

careful drawing on a dragonfly

Many thanks to the artists, musicians, trout-keepers 

and composers of St Peter's