{"id":609,"date":"2019-12-03T16:35:55","date_gmt":"2019-12-03T16:35:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=609"},"modified":"2019-12-03T16:35:55","modified_gmt":"2019-12-03T16:35:55","slug":"a-good-news-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2019\/12\/03\/a-good-news-story\/","title":{"rendered":"A GOOD NEWS STORY"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

YOU\nDON\u00b4T NEED WORDS TO SAY   <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout\nthe past four years, whilst I have been living here on Lanzarote, a former member\nof a writing group I ran in the UK has stayed in touch via e mail and her\nprodigious facebook outpourings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Katie\nHaigh has some fairly severe physical ailments and even occasional sufferings\nfrom poor mental health, but she is a great wife and mum, constantly cajoling\nher tight knit family into all sorts of good deeds for the community. She is\nalso a regular attendee at both Touchstones Creative Writing Group and Langley\nWriters, and even occasionally turns up at Weaving Words at the other side of\ntown. Katie has long been a popular performance poet at venues throughout the\nRochdale Borough and is a regular member of Those Bard From The Baum. For many\nyears she also ran a monthly meeting of poets at The Ring O Bells in Middleton\nwith her friend and fellow poet Gemma Lees. Like\nGemma, Katie is also a published poet with a collection called Prejudice And\nPride (available for free PDF download at clearwalksoft.com\/poetry<\/strong>-drama\/157632-prejudice-and-pride.htm ) and I\nrecently heard that she and her children now occvasionally deliver at poetry\nevents under the umbrella title of Sign Along With Us https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/signalongwithus\/<\/a> that not only\nperforms poetry but also signs it for the deaf. Katie was also, and I think\nstill is, a Brownie leader of the all souls group in Heywood and her daughter\nAshleigh was one of the girls in the group. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Katie would occasionally call me in to deliver creative writing classes to these ladies, and I was always amazed by the writing and performing talents of her daughter and her pal Jade Kilduff. Katie often sends me a photo or two, (actually her last three e mails have been of 59, 46 and 123 photographs respectively !) of group activities not only from their weekly meetings but also from a summer activity-camp the girls are taken to each year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\ncouple of days ago she sent me some You Tube links to a film showing a girl I\nrecognised as Jade Kilduff leading a wheel-chaired child in some sort of\nKaraoke sing-along during which she seemed to be sometimes signing as well as\nsinging words to him. And then, just this morning, I opened my Daily Mail\n(printed in Spain proudly printed under its title) and there on pages 26 and 27\nwas a double page story, and several photographs, of Jade and her young foster\nbrother under the headline You Don\u00b4t Need Words To Say I Love You. https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-7729275\/<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My\nvague memories of Jade and Katie\u00b4s daughter Ashleigh in the Brownies or Guides are\nof them being pretty full-on, always rushing round and creating fun. I thought\nof Jade as the quieter of the two but I could see they were each a good\ncounter-balance for the other, and it was patently obvious, even to me as an\noutsider, how much they cared about their friends and other kids in the group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Diane Kilduff, left, with children Christian and Jade<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This article in The Daily Mail showed Jade to be not only all of the above but also diligent in learning how to help, and share a huge love with, her foster-brother Christian who was born severely disabled. Even the photographs accompanying the article, written by Jenny Johnstone, show how Jade so radiates her affection for Christian that she can hardly take her eyes off him. According to the story, seeing Christian, now four years old and eighteen year old Jade on You Tube clips, https:\/\/www.youtube.com<\/strong>\/ communicating by using sign language and song, reduced songwriter Gary Barlow, of Take That, to tears. One of their favourite songs is Someone You Loved by Lewis Capaldi, who himself re-tweeted their social media upload of Jade and Christian singing and signing together. The story spread across these two pages of the paper lies next to a headline over another story that reads, Mental Health Services \u00b4Fail 60%\u00b4. Such a headline should so shame us as to spark outrage, but in the story of the Kilduffs and their fostered son there is only a sense of wonderment at what Christian has achieved and in how much Jade has helped him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The narrative begins with a call from a foster agency on Christmas Eve four years ago, and continues to where Christian is now, living in a happy home with a caring and loving family. He\nclearly adores Jade, and despite his disablements is able to smile and throw\nopen his arms and say \u00b4I love you Jade\u00b4. This, from a little boy of whom\ndoctors suggested at his birth would never \u00b4walk, talk or smile,\u00b4 is something\nof a miracle. The Daily Mail call the Kilduffs \u00b4an utterly selfless family\u00b4 and\nthat will be why they have such close friends too. I don\u00b4t know the family at all\nbut I do know that they are friendly with Katie Haigh and her family, that I DO\nknow also happen to be an utterly selfless family and around the Kilduffs and\nthe Haighs there will be other families making sacrifices and delivering\nincredible achievements. That seems to me like it could almost be the\ndictionary definition of the word \u00b4community.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nalso exists the phrase \u00b4community arts\u00b4 and I know Katie Haigh and her daughter\nAshleigh and her friend Jade Kilduff are constant participants in Rochdale\u00b4s\nvibrant and impactful community arts sector. Two of the major creative writing\ngroups mentioned in this article are revenue-funded by the local council, as\nare the Borough\u00b4s Skylight Circus, delivering transferable life skills through\ntraditional circus crafts, or M6 Theatre, or Can\u00b4t Dance Can, Tracing Steps, or\nCrescent Community Radio or all across\nthe arts<\/em> who deliver writing and promotional skills in transferable\npackages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nmay now live in pretty much my idea of Paradise but friends like Katie Haigh\nand that story in the Daily Mail, about the Kilduff family and their daughter Jade\nand her foster brother Christian, remind me why I will always remain proud of,\nand will never forget, Rochdale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nwill be other tales of Rochdale community life when talented actress Sue\nDevaney takes to the stage again in her home town for three performances in one\nweekend. My colleague Steve Cooke recently previewed the event in our sister\nall across the arts pages in The Rochdale Observer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Sue Devaney<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The\nlady with the big voice and even bigger heart will be appearing in her own\ncabaret show, Sit Soft With Sue Devaney, at Touchstones Arts And Heritage\nCentre. Sue promises to deliver songs by Gracie Fields in this venue just\nacross the road from a statue of that iconic star of the town. There will also\nbe songs associated with Etta James, one of my favourites artists, and Bette\nMiddler, Edith Piaf, Judy garland and Victoria Wood. Sue will be accompanied\nthroughout the performance by the wonderful Phil Reynolds and the evening will\nalos include Sue being interviewed live on stage by her friend, and\n\u00b4soul-sister,\u00b4 Lisa O\u00b4Neil Rogan,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After\nrecently appearing back on the Corrie cobbles (after a thirty year break !) Sue\nis currently touring in Calendar Girls, \nthe musical, but says \u00b4I can\u00b4t wait to be back up North for Christmas,\nand I\u00b4m so looking forward to a little sing song and chat at Touchstones,\u00a8<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nevening is intended to be laid back and informal and so Sue happily suggests\nthat \u00b4people can come in their winter onesies and slippers and bring a cushion\nand slip on a slipper or two.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some\nof the money raised will be heading for a homeless charity in the area and Sue\ntold all across the arts that \u00b4the atmosphere will be all about sharing, caring\nand having a blooming good belly-laugh.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her\nfriend and interviewer Lisa says \u00cd am really looking forward to catching up\nwith my friend and chatting about all the things you chat about when you sit\ndown with an old friend, only this time there\u00b4ll be an audience !\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These special performances are on Friday December 6th<\/sup> at 7.30 pm until 10.30 pm and Saturday December 7th<\/sup> at 2.00 pm until 5.00 pm and then again that same evening at 7.30 pm. Tickets are \u00a310.00 and are available in advance from www.link4life.org<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nsounds like yet another great example of the caring and sharing community I\nlived in and loved for fifty years, so as Steve Cooke advised on his Rochdale\nCreative Network post, \u00a8Don\u00b4t Miss This !\u00b4<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

YOU DON\u00b4T NEED WORDS TO SAY   Throughout the past four years, whilst I have been living here on Lanzarote, a former member of a writing group I ran in the UK has stayed in touch via e mail and her prodigious facebook outpourings. Katie Haigh has some fairly severe physical ailments and even occasional […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aata","category-performing-arts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}