Dolly’s Coat of Many Colours and My Party Dress (by sarah)

Sometimes there is a beautiful soul that lights up the world around it - I am sure that most people have heard the news by now of Dolly Parton's passing at the age of 80 - a good age and yet with the strain on the world I could not help but want more. Dolly was a song writer, performer, comedian, savvy business woman and charity worker. I have seen it said that no style of music was untouched by her presence... she built communities and was even important in the scientific sphere, funding research and more.

I used to think declarations of grief for celebrities was stupid, but said so and was rightly told off my friend - a fellow musician and scientist. And that made my own grief for when my celebs started dying easier to bear as I had already faced that demon. Said friend liked Dolly too... (it was Michael Jackson's death I was told off over saying the reactions to were stupid, for those who are interested).

So this is my piece on Saint Dolly, as my mum used to call her:

I have an eclectic taste in music - I always called it random. When I started University I bought three CDs - Red Hot Chilli Peppers' Californication, Guns and Roses, and Dolly Parton. The last two were greatest hits and I had a portable discman which had been playing my friend's CDs all summer but I had to give them back...

I still have Dolly's CD and when Jean was little we found a massive collection of her songs that my mum had, and this was fine until we got to the one called Jeany's Afraid of the Dark... as its about a nightlight put on a grave and as my little Jeany was indeed scared and always had been scared of the dark I just couldn't cope with that song, so tended to stick to the songs I knew after that even though I pretty much loved everything I heard of hers.

As I delved into my own song writing and guitar playing I found Dolly a source of inspiration and frustration! Everything she said was pretty much awesome and the numbers of songs she'd written was mind blowing - as someone was being seen as too prolific in my own writing this made me sigh with relief as poems toppled onto the page.

Dolly wrote over five thousand songs and recorded over a thousand herself. This made my poetry and song writing look like under achieving, and I couldn't help but think about this when I received my bronze medal for a song for the Creative Olympics back in 2012. or when I composed a steampunk shanty on request and when I attended the Song Writers' Circle or when Paul Murphy mentioned me in the same sentence as her.

Her always-onwards attitude helped me when I faced setbacks including losing my voice; she was the biggest musical crossover me and my mum had and dad even liked "some" of her songs. He was more keen on her as an actor - I think it was a boob thing - her and my mum both had massive boobs. In her younger days, mum had even played the guitar and sung - she liked to rewrite pop songs to make them religious - mum was annoyingly good at this.

Dolly represented hope to my mum, whether that when mum was on soup runs for the homeless or when she was helping my diva and queen friends get that Dolly look. Then there was the fact that we used to go to barn dances, there was always a Dolly song there for the line dancing at the very minimum - I was banned from line dancing after an incident in my late teens were my failure to remember which way is left and which way is right and my general clumsy double jointedness (dyspraxia and hypermobility syndrome) resulted in me taking out pretty much the entire dance floor.

Mum got to make tasselled jackets and gingham dresses but that was later - when I was little and just starting school I had all handmade clothes which meant we were poor - it doesn't now, but in the 80's it did and there was a party coming up and I was excited but everyone was talking about their new dresses; and I wore dungarees and tracksuits mainly because I was a tom boy and always climbing things and school didn't have a compulsory uniform, and I had been in trouble every single time I was in a dress because apparently you shouldn't climb trees, or kick the football too high or sit like that in a skirt or dress. So I had cute little matching tops and trousers she'd made me.

But a party was different and on top of that I had started to be bullied for wearing homemade things... but mum was making me a dress... I can not remember which one - was it the one made of worn out velvetine bedding in hot pink that my dad made matching bows for? Or was it the knitted dress created from all the offcut yarn scraps of my nans and aunts (the one a second one of had to be made for my doll)?

I don't know but I was cross and then on the TV came this song and Dolly changed my mind singing about each stitch being made with love and scraps and I became fiercely proud of my dresses and home made things - creating problems for myself by going on and on about it, but I think it was better that way.

It was nothing compared to the kids finding out I got free school meals... Dolly Parton fed kids like me and gave them books and did it internationally and she loved everyone.

So what of the frustration?

Well a) some of her songs.... they might seem simple enough but sometimes that makes it a hell of a lot harder to play and b) I don't tend to have long nails because of playing the guitar and doing practical jobs like ground maintenance on a campsite. When I explained this it was pointed out that Dolly had the longest nails any of us had ever seen 90's and early 00's, and had been a farmer. Of course I have friends who actively grew their nails for guitar playing (one hand only) for plucking. This particular comparison was not helpful but Dolly basically had a pep talk for just finding your own way anyway. And it turns out I just kind of suck at having long nails and that is fine.

The world needs people like Dolly - my eldest bought me the news of her death last night and hadn't realised how old she was because Dolly had seemed so timeless. She was hope and love and will be missed.

For me it was like loosing another part of my mother - Dolly's music, and occasionally aesthetics, were something we shared. I was in many ways the opposite of my mum but not with this. Like Star Trek this was an "us thing". I don't know if the kids remember us all singing and dancing - belting out JOLEEEENE in a way the youngest would announce as "cringe" these days.

RIP Dolly Parton GNU

As sad as this is she was missing her husband so much and no one is truly dead until the last ripple they caused fades, and Dolly made many a splash and some of them pretty big! (Again, probably the boobs).

Dolly also made it OK for me to have big boobs and feel that that was more than OK. Body Positivity where and when it was needed.

I never met Dolly but she had a massive impact on my life and always for the positive.

"Life is like a Butterfly..."

Finding My Voice (by sarah)

This weekend just gone I sang with The Folk Chior at The Folk of Gloucester for the Christmas Makers Market and then on Sunday I went and rehearsed Wintery type festive music shenanigans for the Steampunks Christmas Reveals event which will be this coming weekend. It was difficult as I had missed over a months worth of rehearsals and I don't know how to read music (yes still) so there were challenges for both endeavours but I really enjoyed it and everyone seems to want to include me in the music stuff. I have also been attending the Folk at The Folk jam sessions - normally I just watch but sometimes I bring one of my songs - this time sadly due to a funeral most of the people were missing and they were desperate not to just have the same few people doing songs and so I gave them camp fire songs which most of them seemed to like. I even got recognised by someone later on - an elderly lady who has designated me as The Lady with the Silly Songs - who turned up at the textiles group I have been attending on Tuesdays.

I've even went along to a song writing cafe and attended a song writing workshop in Feburary all be it that I didn't get to stay for most of it due to Mary but such is the life of a parent and I still came out of it with one song, one poem and a spoken word/beatpoem/rap thingy. All this is not exactly new for me - I have been telling people about choirs and groups I have belonged to previously and even about song writing awards and things I received. But I have also been telling people people about all the times I've been told I am crap and not a musician and to take all my music down and so on. It is important I express these things because being neural divergent I still live with the music teacher's harsh words of primary school (I wasn't progressing in recorder because she had started sending sheet music home and not running through all the notes in class especially as there were now multiple types of recorders involved - she hadn't realised I couldn't read music but my mum sent her a letter asking for some extra lessons so I could either learn to read music or be taught the tunes individually - the teachers response was to chuck me out of the group and to act as a bar to me being in the school choir too). I hold all these comments within me - it goes for the triumphs too.

So there is a huge element of finding the confidence and freedom to actually go and do these things - ie if there is an audition I am probably stuffed, and choirs normally charge a membership fee which at points in the past has been too much. The irony of having sung in the Royal Albert Hall but to have been unable to join the village choir... and am dram clubs sinking so the show I actually got through the auditions for never actually happened and I had a good part!

The lists go on but it is not just the confidence - I have had issues with my hearing throughout my life more so since covid and the head injury left me with permanent tinnitus. I have a slight delay with things as I am feeling the music meaning that I may react slightly after everyone else... but I can guess where songs are going and when I say I feel the music I very much mean that on several levels and it can consume me from the core of my bones - vibrating all the way through me. I think I am more aware of sound than many people even with being partially deaf and at a couple of points in my life nearly completely death. I was too good in fact and people didn't realise how much of a problem there actually was with my hearing.

Voice is an interesting thing - I have spent much of my life being told it has to fit in, that I had to get rid of the extra noises or that I sound like a man or conversely am too high pitched. Well I am learning to point those bits back in my voice - I am learning my voice all over again thanks to covid and the graves disease I lost my voice even for speaking for over a year and have had repeated sore throats and of course the ever present choking lump that I just can't quiet swallow past. I no longer have Frightmare to use the stranger aspects of my voice at and actually I want to sing with them. clicks and whistles and purrs and growls and two voices, the undulations and braids of sound.

Also after dad died writing was hard - I would go to cafes and write with him and we would read each others stories and poems we'd written and without that there I have been bereft and when I was looking after mum there was no energy or capacity either mentally or physically - my hands didn't even work properly - all there was was cleaning and washing and phone calls to argue with everyone from hospitals to family about her care. But I have been trying to write, trying to create once more - but who am I on this flip side of everything? I feel I have been shattered so many times I do not know, I don't know what I like, what I want to do and I am now in my forties so all those dreams of carers seem foolish and lost to the tragedy of circumstance. None the less I am trying, I am putting words on paper even if they are just lists of stories I hope one day to write - I am keeping a diary again - or at least trying - it is a chaotic thing but it is beautiful (it cost too much) and I am even adding stickers because I like stickers and they are accents to my feelings and hopes and imagery has always been part of how I communicate - even if it is only with myself.

I went to a poetry writing workshop - I haven't done that for so long - and the woods whisper stories of the wild wood and industries and peoples vanished in time and I want to share that with the world. There is something of a song there trying to form and I feel like writing when I am there.

I am Finding my voice - again... it is both the same voice rediscovered and something wholey new.

One, Two, Three… Blast Off (by sarah)

Before covid we were running a story telling night called The Moving Story Telling Cafe but it was derailed and not just by covid - we sadly lost one of our trio to cancer. So last month we relaunched but this time without the Moving - The Folk of Gloucester have kindly offered us a permanent home and also house one of the other Legacy projects of Chloe The Midnight Story Teller... The Story Telling Library.

Last month was a special launch and opening of the library with lots of guest story tellers who all knew Chloe personally - that means the this month is going to be the first actual Gloucester Story Telling Cafe and it happens to fall on May the Forth. One of the reasons the three of us... Chloe, Jane and myself worked so well was that we are unashamedly geeks but perhaps not so obviously geeks to those with narrower ideas of what a geek is. We love our sci-fi and fantasy and I had a request from the Gloucestershire Poetry Society to have an event that geeky poetry would be welcome... well how could we resist such a set up.

So we are blasting off with a Starwars joke and a sci-fi author whizz reading a poem from their sci-fi novel!

Chris Hemingway is a poet, prose writer and musician from Gloucestershire. His book “The Future” was published in 2016 and was described by Cheltenham Poetry Festival as ‘darkly witty, like “The Man Who Fell to Earth “ meets “The Office”’. He has also had published two poetry pamphlets ‘party in the Diaryhouse’ and ‘paperfolders’. That’s a lot of ‘p’s’…

I have used a picture of my dad dressed up an explorer of space when he was a little boy - my Granddad took arty pictures and with my Nanny loved to make outfits for my dad and I am so lucky that copies of this one still existed in Australia and that a cousin kindly sent a copy to me.

Doors open at 7 on May the 4th 2013 at The Folk of Gloucester 99-103 Westgate Street Gloucester, Gloucestershire, GL1 2PG

There is a cafe and bar. Entry is free but we will have a pay what you want pot out!

We are open to all story telling types from traditional to memoirs, to flash fictions, to novel extracts, to oral and of course narrative poetry!

Our Moto is "story telling for all/everyone" and as such not only do we have some fab guests lined up as well as music but we have an open mic were we would love people to come and share. Open mic slots are a max of 10 minutes.

This is the years itinerary - first Thursday of every month except January as lets face it - it is nearly always going to be too close to New Years Eve for most people and I can't be dealing with that!

Here is the Facebook event for tomorrows: One Two Three... Blast Off! and May the Forth be with you!

event

I am very excited about where this is all going - Story Telling and Gloucester have a long history and I hope a longer future!

Things We Are Up Too :) (by sarah)

Sun 20th of Jan - Waterstones Presents Villanelles with the Gloucester Poetry Society 2-4 pm in the cafe Waterstones Gloucester free entry

Thurs 31st of Jan - an evening with Holly McNish and fellow poets at Blackfriars Gloucester (sold out)

February World Poetry Writing Month - or WoPo - a writing drive I have been running for nearly a decade now, it runs through out Feb and I pop up writing exercises and various inspirational bits including guest bloggers and I have some fantastically talented people lined up as guest posters this year 🙂 There is also a Facebook group and page and posts will appear on TheMonsterBlogs twitter and the Pinterest board.

Thurs 7th Feb - First Thursday The Enduring Eye at the Wilson Museum and Art Gallery Cheltenham Sarah will be presenting a poetic response to the polar exploration exhibition, free event and part of regular series: On the first Thursday of the month a cultural hub of food, music, performance, art and retail – all within walking distance and outside of traditional working hours – will come together along Clarence Street, Royal Well Road, St George’s Place and Church Street. First Thursdays is a public event and free to attend. The cultural quarter stays open until 9pm or later on the first Thursday of every month

Mon 11th of Feb - Cheltenham Poetry Festival Slam Qualifier 7:30 pm Playhouse Theatre Cheltenham, £5 tix

Sun 17th of Feb - Waterstones Presents Villanelles with the Gloucester/shire Poetry Society 2-4 pm free event - this event is now on the third Thursday of each month bar April as it clashes with Easter Sunday.

Sat 23rd of Feb - Folk Craft and Story Telling at the Folk Museum Gloucester (also known as the Life Museum) this is a free event as part of the Folk Trail during the Gloucester Folk Festival. Based in the Dairy and Victorian School Room out the back of the museum - sadly due to structural work the actual museum will be closed but the diary, cider press room and garden will be open. We will be running Rag Rug and Barge Painting workshops in the Dairy and story telling (including Aethelflead the puppet) in the Victorian School Room!

Hats For Headway (by sarah)

So this is a thing, I didn't know it was a thing - I probably did but then forgot :/ But get your fancy head gear out!

Today is #HatsforHeadway to raise awareness and cash for an absolutely brilliant charity who have helped so much with people like me who have sustained head injuries. This is the hat I knitted for the Science Showoff on Neurology and brainy things special that they did. It was a wonderful evening with Dr Carina Fearnley a fellow head injury sufferer and friend from my Geology undergraduate days. She has made a fantastic video about her experience:

The event was at the Star of Kings in London but I believe was raising money for the Bristol Headway and I made a paper mache brain and got gummy brain sweets. The hat has since appeared at various British Science Week Events, Cheltenham Science Festival and BBC Country File Live show/festival. It was an amazing night were I learnt about all sorts of things including the medical skeletons etc... lurking beneath London and what their skulls can tell us!

What I didn't say at the time was that I was struggling with knitting due to the damage to my left hand side so this whole thing was create out of loom knitting (French knitting or knitting nancy/spool knitting are all mini looms). Also for me to actually make it to the gig my dad had to come and meet me at the station - which in your 30's is pretty embarrassing, but I have only recently been able to attempt travel on my own on that sort of scale and I was still unable to cook anything other than a microwave meal safely on my own (I've set fire to pans and tried to pick up boiling pots with my bare hands...).

The amazing @Saffy @ScienceShowoff tonight on the brain - what an amazing brain hat and deep time of the brain! pic.twitter.com/W3uK4iZzxx

— Carina Fearnley (@CarinaFearnley) March 1, 2017

There is currently an Art Exhibit and series of talks etc... at Kings College about head injury including a pice on Identity after the fact. I myself had to basically learn to draw again - I always drew with both hands but now... the pictures come out distorted - I have a blind spot in my left eye, and hand coordination was hard. Add in the crisis of everyone else knowing more about me than I myself did and I ended up producing Love: A Stranger Dream. It started as distinct pictures which people asked for as colouring sheets so I put them up for free download here. Then I realised there was a kind of non-linear narrative or themes running through the works and it became a book of visual poetry. I took refuge in art - something that is quiet important in developing coping mechanisms and reducing the amount of depression that head injury victims feel - it is like having everything that is you stripped away.

I even made audio.

And video of it.

Art that started as a way to just express myself when speech and writing where hard graft ended up as something that has helped friends, it explores lots of different aspects of identity and so has ended up at GLBT+ events, dis/different-ability events, music and art installations, two different events for International Women's Day, comic book conventions, poetry events, story telling and maze festivals. I've even made a dress from the art work 0.o - ok yeah I got carried away!

(can't find the photo - if I came across it I'll add it later! but it got compared to the stuff worn by the Welsh Eisteddfod singer/bardic peeps)

As I've probably bored everyone with - I have not long been discharged from the head injury unit including physio at Gloucester Royal - still under neurology but the main chunk of it is done. Charities like Headway - the brain injury association are an absolute life line and they have local branches but head injury sufferers often struggle to get the help that's needed especially as most of the time they still look "normal". I was being mistaken for being drunk and struggling with lots of things. So yeah - hats for headway 🙂