{"id":929,"date":"2020-02-10T10:06:59","date_gmt":"2020-02-10T10:06:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=929"},"modified":"2020-02-10T10:11:08","modified_gmt":"2020-02-10T10:11:08","slug":"a-dinosaur-goes-into-a-library-and-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2020\/02\/10\/a-dinosaur-goes-into-a-library-and-says\/","title":{"rendered":"a dinosaur goes into a library and says……"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

 DINOSAUR ROAMS ROCHDALE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nlived in what was a hot-bed of hot bed of artistic creativity in the UK for\nsixty years of my life, and as an adult collaborated with other artists I much\nadmired to produce works that were intended to be both entertaining and\neducational. Several of those I worked with are still serving as artists\ncontributing to their communities. One such artist, Steve Cooke, still produces\na weekly all across the arts page for The Manchester Evening News Media Group. His\npage on Friday 7th<\/sup> February focussed on two other names I remember\nfondly from my days in the UK. Seamus Kelly is a poet and photographer and\nEileen Earnshaw, a poet, facilitator and low profile social activist and I so\nmuch enjoyed the work they each produced during my time in the UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nlead article on the page told how Eileen and Seamus have each been working with\nBolton Writing Group (BWG) on a project that has seen them looking back to the\nyears between the world wars to consider what life was like then for people in\nthe North West of England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Eileen Earnshaw<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

BWG met recently in The Media faculty of Bolton University to record their thirty minute audio play, \u00a8Queens of Blackpool.\u00b4 This was the first time any of the group had worked in a professional studio and the recording was one more step on a journey that began in the autumn of last year when they started exploring the archives of The Worktown project, maintained at Bolton Public Library. A gathering of information, supervised by Oxford University, designed to illustrate all aspects of working class lives between the years of 1935 and 1942.  Professional and voluntary observers were moved into communities to achieve a body of work that would preserve for posterity an idea of life at that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now\nin a way not dissimilar to the way Victoria Wood drew from historical archives\nand extended and extemporised on them for her acclaimed TV series Housewife 49,\nBWG have drawn on some wonderful photography by the later Humphrey Spender. They\nhave chosen from the archives to focus on the lives of the \u00b4Queens Of\nBlackpool\u00b4 as the main object of their deliberations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These\nso-titled queens were specially selected at the time, not for their looks but\nfor their willingness to work at promoting industry, travelling around the\ncountry to do so, and even going abroad to Russia on one occasion. BWG have\nwoven together stories about these women and include poetry by Eileen and\nSeamus in the \u00b4drama \u2018they have produced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Seamus Kelly (right) on Crescent Radio<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Seamus has been in put in charge of producing photography to publicise BWG and their production of  \u00b4Queens of Blackpool\u00b4 during the full exhibition of their work to be held in the main area of Bolton Public Library in March of this year. We are confident one of our all across the arts correspondents in the UK will share a review with us to post here on Sidetracks and Detours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nall across the arts report tells us that, meanwhile BWG are  working with a film crew and photographer as\nthey move to Blackpool to complete their work, by examining further Worktown\nProject records not usually available for public scrutiny. They will also be\nfilmed creating scenes from the play on location in the Tower (I always though\nEileen should be locked in the Tower !) and on the sea front. This footage will\nbe included in a documentary of the group and this work, and we shall of course\nlet you know of the confirmed date of broadcast as soon as it is announced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As further evidence that, like Lanzarote, the North West remains a thriving arts community, Steve reported elsewhere on his all across the arts page  of an exciting Easter in prospect at Oldham Coliseum Theatre, just twenty miles up the road from Bolton Library. During the school holiday period, in conjunction with Children\u00b4s Theatre Productions and Fiery Tiger London, the Coliseum will be delivering a stage production of Rudyard Kipling\u2019s Jungle Book. There have of course been several film adaptations of Kipling\u00b4s collection of short stories with Disney\u00b4s cartoon version including \u00a8I Wanna Be Like You-oo-oo\u00b4 being a much loved favourite. Now, this stage production will similarly see Mowgli the lost in the jungle man child learn the jungle law and make friends with the animals who help him in his struggles against the menacing tiger Shere Khan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nmusical adaptation, full of memorable characters and uplifting moments should\nbe a real treat, and I bet any youngsters unaware of Kipling\u00b4s work who see the\nplay this Easter will head straight back to school determined to be the first\nto grab a copy of the book from the school library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Rudyard Kipling
my introduction to rhyme<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

My\nown first much loved copy of the book came to me sixty years ago on my eighth\nbirthday, courtesy of my godmother Aunt Jennifer from Sheffield. I\u00b4m pretty\nsure, too, that it was the first package I ever received stamped and addressed\nto me, and when I ripped off the wrapping paper I found a hard-backed blue\ncovered book, full of intricate illustrations and wonderful tales, and, wow,\nsome of  Mr. Kipling\u00b4s exceedingly good\npoetry. This was the start of an affair with rhyme that has led me to\nWordsworth, Frost, Dylan Thomas and Townes Van Zandt and a hundred others and\nthat has endured to these times when I count the aforementioned Seamus Kelly\nand Eileen Earnshaw as being also among my favourite poets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Incidentally,\nI should say, in view of some of our recent posts on the subject that the\nColiseum run will include a British Sign Language Interpretation on Thursday\nApril 16th<\/sup> at 7.30. Details of times and dates of all other\nperformance are available on the theatres web site or on their box office line\non 0161 624 2829 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Dippy drops in at the library
photograph by Steve Cooke<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Other exciting news on Steve Cooke\u00b4s page included details of that week\u00b4s Rochdale lunchtime concert on Toad Lane featuring Jonathan Ellis giving a piano recital in St. Mary in the Baum, and a meeting of The Edwin Waugh Dialect Society at St. Andrew\u00b4s Methodist Church on Entwistle Road in Rochdale. This featured Tatlers\u00b4 Tales, presented by dialect poetry and music duo, Sid Calderbank and Mark Dowding. As if all this isn\u00b4t enough, though, families from around the borough are invited to join in the play at the Loose Parts play session at Number One Riverside Library that will serve as a preview of the forthcoming Dippy On Tour procession. Five days remain until the Dippy The Dinosaur exhibition arrives at Rochdale\u00b4s town centre library. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First\ndisplayed in the National History Museum in London in 1905  the 21 metre long plaster of Paris cast of a\ndiplodocus dinosaur carnegii skeleton will be at Number One Riverside Library\nfrom  10th February to 28th<\/sup>\nJune 2020, during Dippy\u00b4s only north west visit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 DINOSAUR ROAMS ROCHDALE I lived in what was a hot-bed of hot bed of artistic creativity in the UK for sixty years of my life, and as an adult collaborated with other artists I much admired to produce works that were intended to be both entertaining and educational. Several of those I worked with are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":934,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aata"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929","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=929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}