austories

Time to listen in 2012

2011-12-15T10:18:00.004+10:00

This morning I put some suggestions into a project plan for a school Artist In Residence project happening in Riverview first term. It's all about encouraging students to listen to, tell, collect and share stories orally. Planning out the timing of valuable projects like this takes time. The session we had on Tuesday was a two coffee, 5 hour job. It will be worth it though when the stories start flowing.

As I sent my email reply off, I glanced at my incoming emails and it only took one response to a request to sign a petition about whaling and I was into Facebook. Facebook takes time but it is usually worth it. I found a link from shared by US storyteller Robert Bela Wilhelm to a New York Times article about taking time to listen to stories in Africa by Swedish author Henning Mankel called 'The Art of Listening'.

He's lived in Mozambique for twenty odd years and learned a thing or two about listening. I love his anecdote about overhearing two men talking about a friend who had died before he could tell the rest of an important story. What I like about it is not the sadness that he didn't get to finish the story but that the friend had originally agreed to come back the next day to hear the rest of the story. True friend.

So my friends, what do I wish for you all in 2012?

Well time of course. Time enough to listen well to lots of stories.

I'm looking forward to my Riverview collaboration with Narelle Oliver, Lee FullARTon and all the teachers, students and parents at Riverview. It's called the Art of Story but maybe it should have been called The Art of Listen

Grandpa Chris Catches Fish for Christmas

2011-11-29T17:19:00.000+10:00

It's still November but, for kinder children, it's definitely Christmas.

I had fun today at Jamboree Community Kindergarten. I did some of my usual jokes to start off with and I slipped in one about Christmas already being over and that I was sorry that they had missed out.

It's strange doing the northern winter snow stories in subtropical Brisbane. They like it though. This time I did my version of the First Gift of Christmas.

After that was my 'The Possum and the Garbage Truck Driver." It's good. They get lots of laughs about the garbage truck driver being outwitted by a possum and then by the kookaburra. Of course it finishes in a spirit of cooperation and friendship so that's appropriate for Christmas.

I had planned to do 'Grandpa Chris' which starts with the song 'Grandpa Chris catches fish to give to all his friends' and goes on to say what the other grandpa's are doing for the community in their active retirement. It didn't quite feel right for this group though.

I wanted something that involved Christmas and the children more so we created a new Grandpa Chris story called 'Grandpa Chris saves Santa Clause'. Some children get to help as well of course. It worked well and it definitely much more local coastal Australian summer in feel. (Santa's sleigh crash landed in a mangrove.)

'Ho, Ho, Ho. Deck the halls with lots of mangroves'
(photo Tatters; on Flickr)

I'm looking forward to retelling it over the next couple of weeks.

Giant With No Heart Rocks Terrace

2011-11-25T15:59:00.000+10:00

Had the pleasure of performing the folktale 'Giant With No Heart' to approximately 900 Terrace students today for their End of Year Liturgy service.

Connor Finn was looking for a good story that would stimulate some thoughts about appropriate student behaviour over the Christmas holidays and that would fit in with the Christmas message. I gave him the choice of 6 or 7 folktales that I thought would work with boys of that age group and he picked the one I thought would be best.

'Giant With No Heart' is both a dramatic and interesting story from northern Europe. It basically talks about how men get to be 'giants with no heart' and what to do about it.

I asked for some music students to play drums and cymbal to add some more atmosphere to the story and we went for it.

It worked. It's great to have 900 teenagers interested, involved and challenged. Our percussionists were spot on. Loved the orchestral base drum but I couldn't talk them into loading it into my van after the show.

It was a really good try out for the Queensland Storytelling Guild's 70w amplifier system as well. It filled the hall quite well. I was able to play a mp3 sound effects recording straight from a memory stick.

One little moment afterwards was when I was just driving out of the school grounds. One of the students looked up and recognised me. It was good to see his smile.

Use of Stories Around the World

2011-11-09T06:56:00.003+10:00

I keep on being pleasantly surprised by the number of people making use of stories in all sorts of creative ways.

I just replied to an email from Liz Gregory, a teacher in Rugby in the UK, seeking my permission to use my version of the traditional folktale 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin.'

She wants to 'create a compact unit of work as part of a mathematical investigation with cross-curricular ICT, music, environmental science and literacy links'. She pointed me towards an NRich maths activity based on the story. Here's the link - http://nrich.maths.org/1996

This activity is based around the number of people and rat legs that might exist in the story but there are so many other possibilities as well. The Piped Piper has so much potential to be used as a modern day parable around sustainability as well. That was one of the things I had in mind when I did my version of it. I look forward to seeing Liz's version.

Here are some 'rat plague' images:

From a series of images showing the areas in Sydney affected by the outbreak of Bubonic Plague in 1900. Taken by Mr. John Degotardi, Jr., photographer from the Department of Public Works, the images depict the state of the houses and 'slum' buildings at the time of the outbreak and the cleansing and disinfecting operations which followed.

Professional Rat Catchers (in front is a pile of dead rats)
Dated: c. 17/07/1900
Digital ID: 12487_a021_a021000009

I like this one of celesteh Charles Hutchins of some grafitti in Killarney.

and here's the Pied Piper in Hamelin (photo by By sophiea sophie)

Meaning of Fairytales

2011-08-27T11:33:00.006+10:00

I was going through my emails this wet Saturday morning and came across a LinkedIn discussion in the Folktales group about the prominence of the Wolf in stories like 'The Wolf and the Seven Kids' where the kids don't listen well enough to their wise mother and get eaten for their trouble. There was quite a bit of discussion about the wolf as representing Evil. I have always been a bit troubled by the quickness to ascribe evilness to any thing let alone animals. I responded in LinkedIn with the comment below.

"I'm inclined to look at the wolf as representing wildness that comes knocking unbidden at the doors of the house and family of civilisation. The three little pigs and the big bad wolf is another example of course and in this case the little pigs are actually constructing their own additions to civilisation at their wise mother pigs direction.

A interesting recent event in Australia developed mythic proportions and that was the case of the disappearance of the baby Azaria Chamberlain at Uluru. The parents claim was that a wild dingo had taken their baby from beside their tent and dragged it into the wildness of the surrounding bush. In this case the dingo/wolf was not seen as evil but the parents and especially the mother was. She was pilloried in the media charged and jailed. It took quite some time and a number of inquiries to establish that she was not at fault and had not killed her own baby.

Another example has been the dingos of Fraser Island where families like to go camping and fishing. They like to see the dingos as extensions of their family dogs but they are carnivores and a some children have been killed and mauled recently. A local woman, who loves/cares for the dingos and was feeding them because they were 'starving', was charged with doing so and dragged through the courts to prevent her with doing so. Her caring was creating more wildness in the Fraser Island camping sites because it encouraged the dingos to come into the sites and expect food even child food more often. At campsites of course civilization is quite flimsy and their are no fences or walls to keep children in and dingos out.

Peter and the Wolf is another interesting variation around the wildness aspect. It brings up the question of fear really well. I love the animated adaption by Suse Templeton of the Sergei Prokofviev's version. Here Peter is the counterpoint to the fear of his grandfather and the hunters and frees the captured wolf to return to the wildness.

I can't help wondering about these walls we create and the stories we tell. I think I'm going to have to come up with a different ending to my normal one for the Three Little Pigs. I normally have the little pigs succeeding against the 'big, bad wolf' and living happily ever after in 'their house made out of bricks and mortgage'. I wonder if one of the little pigs could learn about wildness somehow?

Bringing Back the Magic

2011-08-22T15:08:00.001+10:00

Really looking forward to presenting my workshops at the Bringing Back the Magic Conference down the Gold Coast in a couple of short weeks time. Should be fun.

Hope so anyway because that's partly what the workshop is about - reminding Early Childhood Workers that one of the easiest ways of having Bringing Stories Alive for children is to have fun.

I was at the Fortitude Valley Centre today telling stories and had a wonderful time. Mind you I was a little concerned about the very young children because the three, four and five year olds were laughing so loudly that the little's were wondering what was going on.

After the show one of the boys came up and said, "Can you come back tomorrow?"

I had apologise and tell him that I was sorry, I couldn't because I telling at a library tomorrow.

He said, "Well when can you come back?"

I said, "Friday," knowing that it would be another group on Friday.

"Oh, I don't come to kindy on Friday, could you come tomorrow?"

Here's the workshop description for Bringing Back the Magic :

Bringing Stories Alive by Daryll Bellingham – having fun with stories and storytelling’ in a hands on and entertaining way is an essential skill for all early child hood educators. This workshop will remind you how easy it is to involve your children in rich storytelling experiences whilst also touching on a selection of other activities that may include improvising new stories, adapting nursery rhymes, creating local place stories, telling personal and family stories, putting children in charge, effective story time planning and addressing story time issues.

Have fun,

Daryll

Greener stories, Carers Workshop and new DVD delivered.

2011-07-21T21:32:00.000+10:00

It's only Thursday and it seems like it's been a really busy week already.

I've been enjoying some kindy shows this week. I notice my stories are getting greener. I suspect that it is partly the launching of the 'carbon tax' and partly the influence of the Catchy Lockyer Stories Bush to Beach Tour that I did as part of Under 8's Week.

I've been enjoying telling some of those stories to kindy kids and watching the results. They've enjoyed them, especially 'David and the Snake Necked Tortoise'. They love Mr Stinky practicing his tortoise self defense mechanism on young David - anything smelly, stinky and poo-ish is a hit with kindy kids.

I was wondering if kindy kids would know about Tawny Frogmouths. The children at Chapel Hill Kindy sure did. After I finished 'Sally and Harry Save a Mopoke' one of the children pointed out a photo on the wall of a Tawny Frogmouth that had visited one of their playground Stringybark Trees. They liked the 'more pork' joke.

The other thing I've noticed is that I'm putting more environmental detail in other stories like 'Rosie and the Whale.' There's definitely a lot more environmental awareness amongst children then there used to be.

Family Day Care Carers Storytelling Workshop
Drove out to the wilds of Kuraby last night to present a storytelling workshop for Brisbane Family Day Care. Nice group of people, all women not surprisingly. I wonder if there are any male Family Day Carers?

I enjoy doing these workshops. They are usually 'introductory plus' because they all at least read stories and most of them tell stories as well. It's great to see adults letting go and having fun with stories and realising that that is what children want. Good to see the professional support that Brisbane Family Day Care is giving their carers as well.

Welcome Feedback
Kaori van Baalen sent me an appreciation card the other week for my participation in Catchy Lockyer Stories. It was a project I'm really proud of so it was good to get such positive feedback from her. I must make a habit of doing the same sort of thing myself. It really makes a difference.

Yarns and Life Stories DVD
Delivered the first of the Yarns and Life Stories - Inala Elders DVD out to Inala today. I'm in the process of drawing up the distribution list and making sure all of the Elders are happy with it but Aunty Vi's granddaughter and great granddaughter are visiting her so she was keen to get some. They look great and I know they are going to be an important community and educational resource.

Tomorrow I'm off to tell some stories to year 2's at Redbank Plains. Should be fun.
Regards
Daryll

Catchy Lockyer Stories - Bush to Beach: Mt Whitestone State School - Insect Adventures

2011-06-21T20:47:00.000+10:00

Catchy Lockyer Stories - Bush to Beach: Mt Whitestone State School - Insect Adventures: "One morning at Mt Whitestone State School in the Lockyer Valley, one of the teachers said, 'Alright students we're going to a bit more resea..."

Catchy Lockyer Stories - Bush to Beach: Creating Wildlife Adventures: Making your place an...

2011-05-29T20:48:00.000+10:00

Catchy Lockyer Stories - Bush to Beach: Creating Wildlife Adventures: Making your place an...: "Had a great day at the Fordsdale Hall today with all of the children, artists, carers and Land for Wildlife experts and participants. Ford..."

Mother Goose's Fairy Tales Retold In Easy Words Chiefly Of One Syllable

2011-04-25T20:50:00.005+10:00

Took a break on Saturday and went down to the West End Markets to see who we could see. Caught Jeremy Youse busking with his usual flair and energy. He's added a top hat symble to his line up. Sounded good.

Met a few other friends, had a curry puff and a cup of coffee and couldn't resist an old copy of 'Mother Goose's Fairy Tales : Retold in Easy Words Chiefly Of One Syllable'. It's undated but probably from around 1950 or so. Had a mix of stories some of which I had not come across before but, really, it was the illustrations, especially the colour plates by G. E. Breary that sold me and anyway it was only $3.

The stories and characters are so English. All the children are rosy cheeked, the girls have bows in their hair and the boys quite Elizabethan in doublets and hose. Of course boys and princes rescue girls and princesses. Good manners triumph over just about everything else and, yes, most of the words are one or two syllables.

Here's an excerpt from 'The Giant Hands'
'Willy lay down that night with a heart full of thanks that he had met so good a master, and thought f his home to which he hoped soon to go back to make his fond mother smile once again.

'He was nearly asleep, and his thoughts were in part mixed with dreams, when a loud shout of "Fire! Fire! roused him.

'Up he rose and dressed quikcly, while the cries grew louder and louder. He ran down stairs. the smoke nearly choked him, for thehouse was on fire. He rushed into the farm-yard where he say his master, with the maids, in a great fright; no water at hand, no fire-engine, every one shouting, the pigs squealing, and the geese cackling.

' What was to be done? The staircase was burned, the flames ran from room to room, and there at a bedroom window stood (can you guess) the farmer's daughter with the smoke all about her; very soon it would be too late!

'As Willie looked on and thought what he could do to save the poor girl's life the giant hands were seen to place themselvers by the side of the house in the form of a ladder, and up this Willie sprang quickly. Soon he reached the window and seized the girl in his arms; he then rushed down and placed her, safe and sound, in charge of her father.'

Aaaaaah! Goodness prevails. Order is restored and the GIANT HANDS are revealed to be the HANDS OF INDUSTRY - known to many and always ready to help the willing and the good.

We didn't get an illustration of Willie braving the fire but we do have

'The Farmer's Daughter Gave Him a Kind Glance'

In some ways its all of another age. Or is it. Princes are still rescuing people although, these days, its from a helicopter. I must have been exposed to similar books as a child but I suspect even then I was cringing while knowing that I had some sort of cultural access.

Life Stories in West End

2011-04-15T14:29:00.005+10:00

Enjoyed a cup of chai and an interview with Ian Kath, local West End podcaster this morning. I'm looking forward to seeing the post on his podcast yourstorypodcast.com and another on CreateYourLifeStory.com .

Mind you the conversation before and after about storytelling and stories and audio software and iLife etc, etc was just as interesting. One of the things we talked about was human consciousness and how it was related to language and story. How do we learn about story structure? Is it scanned by the baby brain like language sounds?

What stories we choose to tell and what we include in them, feel safe to include in them, I find fascinating. I'll be interested to listen to some of my own stories after the editor has his way. Oral History and Life Stories make such important contributions to cultures it's well worth encouraging the practice.

Value of Fairytales

2011-03-15T16:54:00.006+10:00

Have been spending time doing some culling of old files in my office and library and came across a couple of quotes from Rudolph Meyer 'The Wisdom of Fairy Tales' that I obviously thought were worth writing out on the second page of a notebook.

The notebook was saved from the recycling bin because of them so I thought I'd better post the quotes for what passes for blog posterity.

'The characters in fairytales lead us to discover the treasures in our own souls. We become instinctively aware of the sorrows of life and the guidance of destiny.'

Well, I don't think I believe in destiny but I must admit as I look at the news reports of the tsunami in Japan I do wonder about the forces of nature and the sometimes disastrous effects they have on life.

'Fairytales told and retold by mother to child (father to child, storyteller to audience) enrich those depths of soul from which our later hopes and ideals are born.'

I did two shows today with preprep children. One of the centres always requests the same three stories. 'The Tailor', '3 Billy Goats Gruff' and 'Caps for Sale'. Afterwards, the director said,'You know we'll be playing '3 Billy Goats Gruff' and 'Caps for Sale' for months after you visit. They take turns being the characters and the narrator.'

Will those depths of their souls be enriched? Who knows. They'll probably have lots of fun though.

October Storytelling

2010-10-29T13:53:00.003+10:00

I've had a wonderfully varied but quite busy month of storytelling this month.

One of the highlights were the training workshops I was asked to run for PSCQ Workforce Council in Townsville, Ingham, Charters Towers and Ayr. Got to meet lots of early childhood workers from 'the Capital of North Queensland' and surrounding towns.

This week I've been telling in Logan City libraries as part of Children's Week. Had some very young audiences for a pleasant change. One of the highlights though was a mixed age special needs group that came to the library from a local state school. No one had told me that I was getting a special needs class and it took me a little while to work it out. The pleasure though was the unreserved, enthusiastic way in which they enjoyed the stories. This is when storytelling works best. When an audience suspends disbelief and provides lots of feedback about what they are enjoying then the storytelling can really create lots of fun and pleasure.

Another little pleasant surprise at one of the libraries was the young (around 3 yrs old) boy who turned up carrying two dolls. One was Woody from Toy Story and the other was ....... Barbie. He took great pleasure in showing me that if you pressed Barbie gemstone brooch it and her similarly gem encrusted high heels started flashing. Pretty cool I thought. I told him that my favourite Barbie was Monster Truck Driving Barbie.

Had coffee down at Black Star with Rosalyn, a recent migrant from Liberia and Sierra Leone, yesterday afternoon. She wants to tell traditional African stories to Prep audiences. I suggested that she gets a number of stories together that might work and myself and some Storytelling Guild people can give her some feedback. I'm looking forward to seeing how she goes.

Today is the last kindy day before Halloween and, not surprisingly, I was asked to tell some scary stories. I must admit I'm a bit negative about the commercialisation and Americanisation of All Hallows Eve. I'm also a bit concerned about just how scary, scary stories should be for 4 yr olds.

I ended up compromising. I told Jack and the Bean Stalk and I told 'The Old Woman in the Pumpkin' from India. There were two Indian children in the audience and the boy, of Tamil background, was really enjoying it.

I'm never sure how to end Jack and the Bean Stalk however. I know that the main reason children enjoy it is that the hero is a young person and that he overcomes a scary, old giant by being brave and fast and quick witted but really he does dispatch that old giant in a rather gruesome way. I do believe in means and ends and I'm not sure I want to be encouraging any young person to be stealing 'hens that lay golden eggs'.

I wonder if the giant can chase Jack until he comes across the strange old man who gave him the magic beans in the first place? Could be good to bring him back into the story.

Storytellers' Names

2010-09-06T15:34:00.002+10:00

Had the pleasure of performing at two Sunshine Coast C&K prepreps today - Kawana Waters and Buderim.

I love the pre-prepers at this time of year. They're just as excited but they are so intelligent.

At Kawana I told 'Rosie and the Whale' (one of my stories), 'Captain Parrot' (an improv. on my basic Captain Hook story) and 'The Very Clever Turtle' (an adaption of a folk tale from Ghana). At Buderim I told - 'Mary Had a Little Lamb (one of my stories based on the nursery ryhme),'The Baby Tyrannosaurus Rex' and an audience directed improv called 'Barbie and the Frog Prince'.

One of the children asked where I got my stories from and, when I said, 'Books, Grandparents and other storytellers' wanted to know the names of some of my storyteller friends. I obliged of course an even mentioned some of my Facebook storyteller friends. I had expected that some of them might have heard of Facebook but none had.

Enchanted Forest Stories

2010-08-20T12:42:00.006+10:00

One of the projects I really enjoyed was the Enchanted Forest Playground story creation project at Ashgrove Primary School. The stories we created were recorded and incorporated into the Brisbane City Council playground in Dorrington Park. You can go to the playground and listen to the stories.

I've continued to tell some of those stories and create new Enchanted Forest stories with a whole range of students around the state. They usually get a really excited response especially from preprep and prep students.

Here's feedback from a C&K kinder on the northside:

'Thanks heaps Daryll. The storytelling continued outside. We are going on a group excursion in the next few weeks to the Enchanted Forest, so we can improvise some more. See you next time ...'

I love when the storytelling and creation continues like this.

You can visit the park as well if you're in Brisbane.

View Enchanted Forest Playground in a larger map

Here's a link on playground finder.

Forest Jigsaw, Media Massage and Goomeri Podcasts

2010-05-09T07:49:00.009+10:00

Back home after couple of days performing and creating and publishing stories with students at Goomeri State School and I've been wondering why completing a 750 piece jigsaw puzzle called Stout Wood has given me so much pleasure.

Nice to complete things - yes; it's a pleasant photo - yes; but really I think it's about seeing a photo of such a rich forest after having driven through so much cleared farming land between Goomeri and Brisbane.

So much of that upper Brisbane Valley is cleared grazing country or is struggling regrowth. Sure there's some forest around Blackbutt, Nanango etc but from the main road you don't see much.

Good to see there are some rail bike trails being setup. Must get up there on some. Stopped at the market in park at Kilkoy and ran into two separate friends around the coffee van.

Went into a St Vinnies in Kingaroy and, as I usually do, had a scrounge around the 2nd hand books. Right in front of the children's book section, strangely enough, was a book I couldn't resist. It was only 30 cents as well. It was that oft quoted product of the late 60's 'The Medium is the Massage' by Marshall McLuhan and Qentin Fiore. What a blast from the past. Not so past though, it keeps on being quoted 43 years later.

I looked for one of my favourite photos in it - the one with the traditional African storyteller putting on a scary face for his village audience. Still like it. Speaks of the tradition of storytelling so well. The caption reads : 'The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.'

It was interesting watching what grabbed the interest of the primary and highschool students in the Goomeri 'village'. Listening to stories did; helping to create stories about students in their place did; telling stories about their experiences did. Recording and editing the podcasts was interesting for them as well. They enjoyed seeing their stories published online on 'The Learning Place' blog and podcast lounges.

One of the media that was not exciting for the highschool audiences however was my suggestion that we do a digital radio production - Radio Goomeri. I was a little puzzled until one of the teachers reminded me that they don't listen to much radio. Their massage comes from iTunes playlists.

Kookaburra - feathered laugher

2010-04-27T17:16:00.006+10:00

I've always liked Kookaburras. What Australian doesn't?

I think I remember reading about them in David Fleay's book on Australian animals when I was a child and definitely loved reading research about their communal nature and things like why they trapeze fly.

It's not surprising that one of the stories in my storytelling repertoire is one I created with prep students about a kookaburra and a rather 'muddle headed' but heroic wombat.

We used to have kookaburras visit us at home. They would sit on the clothes line under the mango tree and laugh and look for worms and bugs in the compost. There are too many construction sites around us now and although we still hear the occaisional one in the distance they don't come visiting like the butcher birds, magpies and rainbow lokikeets.

Still they always sound like home.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

And here's the poem that inspired that video on bubbl.us - you can move it around and zoom to see it.

A Question of Balance

2010-04-04T16:48:00.004+10:00

Caught the bus over to the Royal Brisbane Hospital to visit my mum today. She was gardening and took a step back rather then forward, tripped on a rock and landed with a hip crunching force on the concrete drive.

Watching and listening to the parallel dramas of the public hospital ward has really brought this question of balance up in my conciousness this week. Things like - use this painkiller and you will be able to handle the essential physio treatment but it might cause some nausea. Well something has certainly caused a fair bit of nausea for my Mum.

Still, despite the superbug in the ward and the shortage of moniters etc, she is getting really good treatment by the staff and I've learnt a very neat way of taking off the disposable apron and folding it into each of the disposable gloves before consigning them all to the bin, thanks to watching a wardsman.

I got off the bus at the Roma Street busway on the way home and walked across the Kurilpa Bridge and took in the Asia Pacific Triennial again. Watched a video that Suse Wolf recommended. She said it really made her glad that we lived in such a wonderful country as Australia so I was curious. I had to agree really. It was a commentry on the ugliness of the rapid industrial development in the three dams area balanced with the beauty and colour of the pots of flowers the two men were carrying. I hope our Lord Mayor got to see it.

Great Brisbane Bike Ride

2010-03-21T21:00:00.006+10:00

Well done Bicycle Queensland for organising yet another Bike Week and the many cycle events on today. I managed the 45km Great Brisbane Bike ride - yey!

We descended down, down into the Clem7 version of subterranean hell and ascended somewhat more slowly into the fresh on the other side.

What a pleasant change it was to be riding without cars and trucks thundering everywhere. There was just the whirring of bike chains, puffing of riders, the clicking up and down the gears and the pleasant warnings of passing speedsters 'passing right'.

Riding with my friends Bill and Isabelle, I remembered the sort of riding I used to do with my sister and cousins as kids - up to Jolley's Lookout and down the goat track to Highvale and back in through Samford. That was a longish day adventure. No one seemed to mind. Must have been a different universe. Today was too in a way, a bicycle universe.

Bit funny though, I collected my t-shirt and stuff at the Southbank finish line and road home, and, would you believe it, coming up that last hill to our place, my leg muscles finally said, 'Enough!' and they all decided to cramp at once. Took a bit of stretching to persuade them that I wasn't going to ride any more k's, at least not today.

Stories about Digital Stories

2010-03-16T21:08:00.005+10:00

Got invited this week by Dr Christina Spurgeon to drop along as guest lecturer to her Digital Stories course at QUT Creative Industries.

I really enjoyed telling students stories about the Digital Stories I've either created or helped create in the various community digital storytelling projects I've organised, co-ordinated and facilitated. Digital Stories are one of the wonders of the digital age. If done well, they help keep the old traditional storytelling skills alive in a low cost digital production way. We had some interesting debates about what was 'Digital Story' and what was 'documentary' or 'interview'.

It's great to interact with students discovering the way in which creating a digital story about one of one's own important stories can be so transforming. Hearing their draft scripts was a real gift.

It will be interesting to see how the Digital Story develops in this digital age. The relatively low cost software like MovieMaker and iMovie and hardware like laptops and digital cameras will keep changing and digital stories will change with them for better or worse.

In the meantime, if you would like to see some Queensland digital stories, you can go to YouTube and do a search for 'queensland storylines' (without the apostrophes). There are even some there that I did. Look out for 'Lucas Papaw Ointment' or 'Growing up with the Princess', for example.

Lizard Tales

2009-10-14T09:15:00.006+10:00

The Lizard Tales project created by Sophie Chapman as part of the West End Live section of the Brisbane Festival was a real buzz. We made good use of the shade of the trees and the ABSOE lawn and had a really pleasant audience of adults and children.

Sophie is still waiting for the edited audio versions of the stories and I'll post them as soon as she gets them to me but in the meantime here are some photos from the day.

Sophie Chapman & Daryll Bellingham, Lizard Tales, October 2009

Community Story creation event at West End Live

2009-09-24T22:14:00.004+10:00

Really looking forward to the community story creation session called
Lizard Tales at West End Live on Saturday 3rd October, 2009

Initiated by Sophie Chapman and now part of the Brisbane Festival's West End Live event, you are invited to come and have some fun creating some new West End stories. Can you imagine what 'The Lizard' might get up to if it woke up and had a walk around West End? Would it meet Kuril the local Indigenous totem in Kurilpa its home? And what would Kuril, the water rat think? Would it go for a climb up Stefan's tower or get a haircut from Phil the Barber?

You'll be able to watch the stories being transformed into illustrations by local artist Emmanuel Hernaez.

Lizard Tales Saturday 3rd October, 2:00 pm to 3:30pm.

Turning new pages.

2009-09-14T21:22:00.006+10:00

Sometimes it feels like I've got those Book Week Goes On Forever blues .......

Not really. Been having fun. Just had a great week at the Belmont State School Literary Festival. Told lots of stories and created and recorded heaps as Belmont Stories podcasts. Will slowly add them to my austoryplace blog over the next week.

Felt like I was turning a new page on multimedia/storytelling work with students by creating a new storytelling/creation performance/workshop podcasting session. It was pretty easy fitting it in the 80 minute sessions with the gifted and talented students but an interesting challenge getting it to fit in the 45 min sessions. We did but the stories are pretty short. Even did some with the preps.

Kids loved the sessions.

Speaking of a new page, here's a great video you can find on YouTube. CONTACT is up to there usual good work with young people on Brisbane's southside.

Brisbane Conversations - B150 event at Brisbane Square Library

2009-07-20T16:33:00.003+10:00

BCC has asked me to compere a 'Brisbane Conversations' session at the Brisbane Square Library community meeting room on Monday 10th August from 10:00 am to 11:30.

It will be a wonderfully eclectic mix of stories, songs, poems, raps and historical information as part of BCC Libraries Services B150 contributions. Expect subjects as diverse as Jacarandas, 'Brisbane Lovely Brisbane', Brisbane Utopian dreamers of the 1890's, maybe the Ship Inn Hotel, Newstead House, an elephant escape and much more.

It's free but you do have to book Ring 3403 4166 to reserve a place. If you would like a 5 minute spot to tell a story, sing a song or read a poem about Brisbane and the 150 celebration let me know.

You can download the PDF of the leaflet at files.me.com/austory/okfaen Please pass this link on to anyone you think may be interested.

Queensland Conservation Council 40th Birthday

2009-07-20T16:15:00.006+10:00

The QCC shares a birthday with the moon landing! And for those of you that still think that the moon landing was just one big story, that's not so bad because I just spent this last weekend immersed in stories from conservationists and environmentalists from Queensland Conservation. There was a gala dinner at the Legends Room at the Gabba and a Telling Conservation Tales afternoon at the Queensland Museum.

I had the honour of compering the three 'on the couch' sessions with such notable Queensland environmentalists as John Sinclair from Fraser Island, Eddie Hegerl from the Save the Barrier Reef campaign, Drew Hutton and hard working Coordinators like Liz Bourne, Felicity Wishart and Imogen Zethoven. We heard about the successes and the disappointments, the unexpected outcomes, brushes with the law and the courage and dogged determination of a gallant bunch of Queenslanders determined to ensure that the environment had the best chance possible.

Telling and listen to stories like this is a wonderfully healing and sustaining community building exercise for any organisation but, for one like the QCC, which at many times has had to run major environmental campaigns on the smell of a gum leaf, it is essential.

I also had the pleasure of being employed to do 10 oral history interviews with 10 environmentalists who have contributed to QCC's history. Well done Q150 for making the money available and well done QCC for having the wisdom to realise how important it is to do so.

Next step is help get the DVD of interviews together looking forward to adding it to my collection.

Hickory, Dickery, Docket

2009-06-19T13:36:00.003+10:00

'Hickery, Dickery, Docket,
The mouse ran up the rocket,
He climbed through a hole
As the rocket took off
And hid in the austronaut's pocket.'

There I did it. I've been meaning to use 'Hickory, Dickory, Dock' as the start of a story for ages and never quite managed it. This week Wilston-Grange Kindergarten had indicated that their children were interested in, among other things, space and rockets and planets. It was clear they were to. There was a neat solar system mobile hanging from their ceiling.

I had fun creating a new story about a mouse that went to the Space Station and helped install a space telescope and I've added another nursery rhyme story to my repertoire.

Oral Histories & a neat animation

2009-06-04T10:23:00.005+10:00

I've been hearing lots of oral history stories over the last week as I record and edit stories from environmental and conservation activists in Queensland. Environmental successes, struggles, strange and unexpected happenings but most especially just hearing about deep caring. It's a very neat project that is going to culminate in the Qld Conservation Council 40th Birthday Celebrations in July.

Here's a really nice story like music video animation that FaceBook friend Bronwyn Davies pointed me to on YouTube.

Oh, yes, if you're coming to GreenFest in the Brisbane City Botanical Gardens on this weekend, 6th and 7th June, came and say hullo, I'll be in the BCC WaterSmart display with cartoonist Brian Doyle.

The Sorcerers Apprentice on 10" 78RPM

2009-05-26T15:42:00.004+10:00

Hey, Baby Boomer storytellers, want some childhood nostalgia? Go to http://www.kiddierecords.com and there you will find downloadable copies of those records parents used to buy their kids. I've noticed quite a few I recognise so I must have scored with Christmas or birthday presents a number of times.

'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' was published and sold as a 10" 78RPM album with Milton Cross as the narrator. I remember loving and hating it as a kid in front of the beautiful old radiogram. It could be a bit scary if you were listening on your own in the half dark.

Paul Gallico's 'Snow Goose' was another I recognise. The sound quality is very familiar although I'm sure ours got progressively scratchier with time.

Could make a quite interesting retro-audio resource for teaching etc.

Under 8's Week Storytelling & the red peg

2009-05-26T14:32:00.003+10:00

Under 8's Week is not as big as it used to be but I am busy telling stories however. Had some wonderful sessions this week. One of my centres warned me that the audience would be mainly boys and they were. We had heaps of fun. It was fascinating watching them struggle with male conditioning to be 'boofy' and at the same time letting themselves enjoy story and fantasy and fun.

One of the stories I regularly tell is 'Grandpa Chris' about 3 grandpas and their mateship on the one hand and their volunteering for community on the other. The boys loved it when Grandpas Chris (who catches fish to give to all his friends) goes zooming along in his tinnie. I could see them wanting to resist singing the different grandpas songs but joining in just the same. The story and the fun kept them there.

After the story session while I was packing up, one of the boys came back in and said, 'I found this in the garden. You can take it home if you like.' I said, 'Oh thank you. I'll put it in my treasure chest.'

It was a small piece of broken red plastic clothes peg.

He went out with a big smile on his face.

Tomato Stories

2009-05-24T23:05:00.001+10:00

Brisbane Ideas Festival

2008-12-05T08:26:00.003+10:00

Just loved the animation on the Brisbane Ideas Festival. It's flash so it not be viewable for everyone. Anyone want to do a storytelling one with me?

Harbin to South Brisbane

2008-11-28T22:01:00.003+10:00

Sat in one of our neighbours loungeroom today and shot an interview. What a life story unfolded as 91 year old Nadia told us her life story of growing up in the Russian enclave Chinese city of Harbin, surviving floods and wars, epidemics and poverty and eventually emigrating to Australia. I'm really looking forward to recording more of her stories and putting them together as oral history recordings and digital stories.

Curlews and neighbours

2008-11-23T23:59:00.002+10:00

Karen and I went for a walk this afternoon to see if we could spot a curlew or two. Not that I was very confident, we hadn't heard their spooky night calls for a few weeks at least.

We had a look at the excavation site. It looked like any big hole in the ground and then walked around into Graham Street to see what had happened to the houses there. We'd been told they were being resumed.

Well Karen knocked on the door of one - she's good at that - and this time there was someone home - a really interesting someone with lots of stories to tell. Well I hope so anyway, Nadia is 91 years old and has lived there in Graham Street for many years.

She has many stories to tell - from China, from her Russian community, of being involved in the local 'Gabba community and of not wanting to leave her house.

With a bit of luck we'll be able to record some of her stories for her and maybe create a digital story or two.

Oh yes, she's upset about not hearing the Bush Curlews for sometime either.

Stories at Parties

2008-11-23T11:27:00.003+10:00

Really enjoyed one of those end of year catch up parties yesterday at Getano and Rae's house. It had everything you could ask for really - old friends, new acquaintances, barbque, bocce in the backyard, music, singing and drumming. A good time was had by all, well, almost.

There was a three and a half year old boy there, the only boy and the only one of his age. You could tell that being with adults really wasn't as good as it could be.

I was impressed by the way he joined in with various percussion instruments as we jammed and sang but he really came alive when Getano suggested I tell a story. I told my 'Little Blue Train and the Ghost Story' and the transformation in Rohan was immediate and joyful. Now the shakers could be used for train noises - yes! Now he join in with the story and the smile on his face was so infectious.

Whereas previously I had been a friendly stranger, now I was the provider of a story just for him.

It was a good reminder of how important it is to be really inclusive. So thank you Getano and Rae for the party and thank you Rohan for the reminder.

Storytelling Chair

2008-11-16T21:40:00.004+10:00

Came across this on Flickr and couldn't resist. Mind you I'm not so sure how much I'd like to tell there but I'd sure like to try some time. It's in St Ives in West Yorkshire and was taken by 'Janet 59'. Anyone been there?

A Story for Slippery Financial Times

2008-11-05T14:28:00.005+10:00

There have been a number of times lately when I've realised that I, and many other people around the world, have not kept their eye on the ball. Watching the value of superannuation investment falling rather precipitously has been quite unsettling for quite a lot of us. So as I was reading my bedtime story from 'Classic Folk.Tales from around the World', I came across a rather nice Irish story that seems to sum up a quite a bit of the current situation. It's called - 'The Basket of Eggs' and goes something like this.

There was once a fine woman and she was on her way to market counting the price of her basket of eggs as she walked.

"If eggs are up," says she, "I'll be getting a handful of silver, and even if prices be down I'll not do too badly at all for I have a weighty supply."

With that she noticed a wee little boy sitting down by the hedge, he stitching away at a brogue.

Now everyone knows that if you manage to grab hold of one of the little people and keep your eye on him at all times he will lead you to a pot of buried gold.

She juked up behind him like a cat after a bird and she caught him a strong grip of his kneck. Well he let out an odious screech for he was horrid surprised.

"Will you show me your treasure?", says she.

"You're a terrible fine woman, mistress dear," says the leprachaun, "I've travelled a power of the earth and I never came in with your equal."

"Go on with your old fashioned chat," she replies and pops him up in her basket on top of the eggs, all the time keeping her eye on him and a good hold of his ear to make sure he didn't escape.

Well as they walked on, him giving directions and keeping up his flattering banter, what did he do but reach down into the basket with both hands and begin to bail out eggs onto the ground behind them.

She fetched him a terrible clout, but the harder she beat him the faster he threw out the eggs.

"Stop! You unmannerly coley,' cries she.

"Sure it's doing you a favour I am. Every time an egg dashes to the ground a well grown chicken springs up."

"Quit raving," says she.

"If you doubt my word," says he, "Just look at the fine flock of chickens that is following us."

She could resist the temptation no longer and turned to look and, with a twist and a spring, the leprachaun slipped from her grasp and disappeared under a hedge.

"The wee lad has fooled me entirely and my eggs are ruined but it's a good thing to know that I'm the finest woman he's seen across the wide world, that it is."

So there you go - 'don't count your chickens', 'keep your eye on the ball', 'don't be beguiled by smooth talking lads' and 'keep a good grasp on ... on... on?'

p.s. 'Classic Folk-Tales from around the World' by Robert Nye does have some classics and some quite good stories as well. One of the disappointing things however, is there is no record of where the stories were collected or copied from. If anyone knows, I'd appreciated hearing.

Entertaining Storytelling Guild Lounge Telling

2008-11-03T15:45:00.008+10:00

Mmmm - another Storytelling Guild Lounge Telling. They really are a very sane and entertaining way to spend an afternoon and evening. We lots of shared lots of 'bring a plates', shared conversation, shared stories and shared laughs. The world would be in a much better way if it spent more of its time in Lounge Tellings.

One of the highlights was a visiting storyteller from Sweden - Kerstin Thuresson. She regaled us with Swedish Folktales mostly - some we knew and some we didn't but it was all great fun.

She said:

"I mostly do performances in different culture houses, stages and festivals all over Sweden. I love folktales from all around the world and I'm extra fond of those who have a bit of humor in the end. I do also love the stories from India. I sometimes tell what we call Life Stories: screamingly funny things that has happened to me in my own life, a bit extra salted/spiced. I also do a special performance with stories about strong women on the International Women Day every year.

I’m the secretary of the non-profit association of Storytelling on the West Coast of Sweden. Comparable to your Guild, I think.

The Swedish storytellers are organized in approximately 8 geographic non-profit associations. An these associations are organized in one national association: Storytelling Net Sweden, an approximate translation. We have two big festivals every year, the biggest a week long in June every year is also the oldest and they celebrates 20th anniversary 2009, the second one has ran for four years and lasts over a weekend."

It's good to know that storytellers are so well organised in Sweden. If you are interested in Guild events the best way is to visit the blog and join the Guild and the email list.

Story Props

2008-10-24T17:11:00.006+10:00

I use props a lot in my stories, not all stories mind you, but I do think that they add to the story and storytelling. Three questions come to mind - why? what? and how?

Here's a why list:
• props can enrich and add layers to stories
• props suggest - characters, places, actions, cultures
• props can make storytelling easier and more enjoyable for teller and audience
• props are often light and fun
• they usually add variety and can add surprise

From my point of view, a prop is only worth using if it enhances the story or the telling. They are a bit like the pictures in the picture book, only partly mind you, because it is really the storytellers voice, language, expression etc that really creates pictures for audiences.

What?
Well, first of all, my props have to fit into my prop box - my old tin trunk, which often functions as a prop itself. It becomes a pirates treasure chest very often, even if I don't tell a pirate story.

Next I prefer multi-functional props. One of my favourites is my whirly, a length of corrugated plastic pipe, which is usually the wind but there are so many stories, traditional and improvised, where the wind is useful. It's the wind blowing around the rigging in my pirate stories or the wind blowing around the mountain in 'Dragon Girl' or the wind blowing around Thomas Rhuag's cottage in 'The Seal Catcher'. It can be other things however. It becomes the sky god in 'Osebo the Leopard'. This is a really good example of the usefulness of a prop. I think it provides a better and more impressive description of a sky god than any words I might try.

One of the interesting thing about props is that, if they are any good, then they soon become multi-functional. My tambourine is a good example. It's perfect for Christmas stories especially any story where some one sings 'Jingle Bells'. It didn't take me long to find other uses for the tambourine. It makes a pretty good crash of waves or a splash.

Props are even more useful if they suggest things other then the obvious. An African drum suggests Africa and is Osebo the Leopards drum which the other animals try to get. Chinese bells or cymbals suggest China and make a really good start to a Chinese story. I stretch this to a Vietnamese story or a Tibetan (sorry I would if I told one) or an Indian story. I further stretch their use to suggest - 'some thing magical', 'the Fairy Queen' etc.

How
As loathe as I am to suggest a recipe, I going to suggest 'use sparingly' is an appropriate direction. I don't want to become any more of a 'props roadie' than I already am.

A second direction might be - 'the younger the audience the more useful they become'. This is particularly so because really young children might not follow all of your words but can find a prop like a train whistle and shaker accompanying a train story a lot of fun. They will also enjoy glove puppets especially with good sounds and songs.

A third direction might be - 'use them cleanly and efficiently'. Mucking around with props is really distracting. Put them down when you're not actually using them and pick them up cleanly when you do.

My Favourite Five
1) my tin trunk
2) my kookaburra (painted ply wood - thank you Suzanne Holman) so far only one story
3) blue shaker and wooden huon pine train whistle from Salamanca Markets
4) bag of hats and caps - 'Caps for Sale' and plenty more
5) my Djembe - so African, so much energy and fun - lots of stories

What's your Favourite Five list of props?

Daryll Bellingham

Storytelling Workshop - November

2008-10-13T17:11:00.006+10:00

Story Skills and Telling Tales

a summer workshop at the Sussex Street Hall, West End

Just imagine if every single person told stories in interesting, entertaining ways - how much more fascinating our worlds would be.

Would you like to feel more relaxed, confident and alive telling stories?

Come along to 'Story Skills and Telling Tales' and improve your storytelling and story creating skills.

Daryll Bellingham has been earning a living through storytelling for over twenty years. Daryll's performed in kindergartens and schools, birthday parties for young and old, Corporate board rooms and Government House, storytelling festivals and early childhood conferences. He's lectured and run workshops and projects in universities and remote communities, churches and neighbourhood centres.

Over the last few years Daryll has been exploring how to adapt traditional oral storytelling skills to the new possibilities of Digital Stories, podcasting, blogging and story mapping.

This day long workshop will entertain and entrance you. You'll hear stories and participate in storytelling exercises designed to build on your existing skills. You'll learn how to learn a story and put the book down before you tell and how to create a brand new story that no one has ever heard before but most importantly you'll learn how to bring a story alive for any audience.

Do you need to bring anything? Well no, but if you do bring along an interesting personal photograph or an important object you will get even more out of the workshop. Please bring lunch to share, morning and afternoon tea will be provided.

Date Saturday, 15th November, 2008

Time 9:15 am for a 9:30 am start till 4:30 pm

Venue Sussex Street Hall, Sussex Street, West End (near corner of Vulture Street and Sussex Street)

Cost $100
Early Bird Discount $90 (booked & paid by 31st October)
Storytelling Guild Qld membership $75
Pensioners & Unemployed $75

Contact for Bookings or more Information - 07 3846 3135
- mail@storytell.com.au

Living Library

2008-10-06T07:25:00.008+10:00

Well we got back from Deniliquin in time to work on the latest Brisbane City Council Living Library project that Karen has been helping to organise. This time it was at Garden City Branch Library in their community meeting room.

I find the Living Library concept quite brilliant. The whole idea is to create a safe place where you can listen to stories that you don't normally hear from people you don't normally meet.

This Living Library was relatively small to fit the size of the community meeting room. We had 10 living books on quite a range of topics available. There was someone speaking about her mental illness, another about being a heart recipient, somebody else about his conversion to Islam .......

The Living Library concept began in Denmark with the first event at the Roskilde Festival in 2000. Since then it has been spreading around the world. You can find their web site at living-library.org . The first in Australia was initiated in Lismore and now both Brisbane City Council and Redlands Library Services have run them as well.

What can you do with your living book? Well you can't take them home or damage them. What you do is basically get comfortable and listen respectfully to your 'Books' story and ask questions. At the end of your borrowing period you say goodbye and thank you and maybe 'borrow another book' and listen to another fascinating story.

It's a quite unique opportunity to sit and listen to an Aboriginal Elder talking about growing up in Cherbourg or a young Muslim woman talking about head scarves or a transsexual person giving a really good run down on how she advocates for the community - all in the one safe place. Yes, I know, you see some of these sorts of stories on TV but these are real live people telling real live stories.

Next time hear about a Living Library stop and sit down for 40 minutes or so. Your life won't be the same ever again.

Sweet Stories in the Pop

2008-09-29T18:07:00.004+10:00

Greetings from Deniliquin. Karen and I are having a break from the big smoke and visiting family in country New South Wales.

Not that I've been idle mind you, I've been taking some time to update my website.

In the process, I came across the 'Sweet Stories in the Pop' project I did with Alex McCallum and Karen Tunny and one of the Radio Lollipop Mater Children's Hospital support teams in Brisbane.

It was such a sweet project - telling stories over Radio Lollipop and visiting the wards telling and creating stories with children in the wards.

I just enjoyed reading one of those stories 'Jimmy Makes a Wish'. Hope you'll enjoy its fresh, young innocence as well.

The Co-Conspiratorial Audience

2008-09-12T09:11:00.004+10:00

I have a confession to make. I am truly, truly sorry but I still have a friend who communicates not by email (sob). He still communicates by letter! I hesitate to reveal his name but I suspect no real harm will come to him so I will, it's, it's - Dennis Murphy.

The other retro habit Dennis has is he stays with people on his puppeteering tours. One of the discussion we had last time he stayed was about his researching into humour and audiences and he promised to send me some of his results. Turns out that was what the letter was. He got the address wrong however and, first of all it went off to 84 Stephens Road, which if it exists at all is the boys' school up the road. Well they returned it to Dennis and Dennis reposted it and we finally got our letter.

One of Dennis's collection of quotes about audiences reminded me of some performer/audience magic that happened this week. The quote is one from Dario Fo, the Italian Nobel Prize winning storyteller, actor, director and exponent of the traditional Italian theatre Commedia Dell'arte. He once said, according to Murphy,

'The public is my co-conspirator. My texts have been shaped and changed by their reactions.'

I have to totally agree with both Dennis and Dario and the little story adventure that I and my audience at the Inala Community Kindy embarked on the other day is a wonderful example. You see, a couple of years back I decided I absolutely had to have a story that celebrated Aussie men in all of their generosity and thoughtfulness so I created a story about 'Grandpa Chris who catches fish to share with all his friends.' I achieved the bit about how retired men make wonderful little contributions to social capital and generally speaking my older audiences really like the idea. My younger audiences get into it and more or less enjoy it but I've always been aware that if most of them had their way they would 'juice it up a bit' with either some adventure or some silliness.

So everytime I dust off Granpa Chris and bring him out for my audiences, I am aware of this tension. Now back to the kindy, this time as Grandpa Chris is out in his tinny singing his song and reeling in another fish, I sense that the audiences need for something crazy has almost reached cicada shrillness - they want Granpa Chris to catch a huge shark. So he does. He gets it back to shore and now what does he do. He puts it on his bicycle and, one of the girls, who obviously had been following this development with interest and in detail, said, "Granpa Chris sat on top of the shark on the bicycle!" Well that's exactly what he had to do and off he went to Grandpa Ted's place riding along on top of the shark.

This upset my 'nice' story quite a bit and gave me quite a bit of improvising work to do to get to a reasonable resolution and still leave the 'warm glow Granpas are all right' feeling. We managed it of course, audiences are very helpful like that. One of the girls, might have been the same one, helped tie up a loose end. She asked, "and what about the sharks head?" I had Grandpa Chris give it to the cat but, really I suppose, she would have been happier if the shark ate the cat.

So telling 'Grandpa Chris' will never be the same. I've conspired with my audience and the text has been reshaped.

West End Digital Story Spaces Project

2008-09-11T17:02:00.004+10:00

Readers of my austories blog might be excused for thinking that I only tell stories to, or with, children - far from it.

Our current project with the West End Community Storytelling Group - West End Digital Story Spaces - is now well underway. We've got the blog 'West End Stories' working well now with both text, maps and podcast entries complimenting each other.

We'll be adding lots more stories of course but, if you could visit the blog and make some supportive comments, our participants, many of whom have a mental illness or an intellectual disability, would appreciate it.

We've been making use of the free services of podomatic for our podcasting recordings and our next step will be to set up both YouTube and MySpace sites to get some video up and running.
If you could visit our westendstories podcast site and 'become a fan' 'join the mailing list' or 'record a comment' that would be great. You can tell your friends we'll be adding lots more podcasts and vodcasts as the project continues.

In the mean time, I thought you might like to have a listen to a story about one of our West End Story Spaces - the old Tristrams Factory that became the West End Markets building.

Special Persons Day and Clean Hands

2008-09-10T20:43:00.002+10:00

Two shows today and both were at C&KA Kindergartens with pre-preps. One was back to a centre I hadn't been to for a few years so it was nice to get back there and find most of the same warm, friendly staff were there with a new director. Dinosaurs were big so my 'Baby T-Rex Story' had a good outing. It was good to see the wonderful dinorama that had been created in one of the rooms. One of the sign of the times however was the reqirement to carefully wash my hands with a full on detergent wash outside the kinder to avoid bringing in any peanut residues into the centre.

The other centre was having a 'special persons day' and it was great to be immersed in the really positive family and community feeling of the day again. One grandmother had seen me perform at one of these four other times. We seemed like old friends. 'Grandpa Chris went catching fish', 'Dragon Girl' and a fun filled improvisation set at the beach made up the bill.

Guardian Angels by the Seaside

2008-09-08T16:26:00.012+10:00

Spent the morning in the company of Angels today - Prep and Year One students at Guardian Angels Primary in Bay Terrace at Wynnum. They had opted for this week as their Book Week and the library was full of Book Fair so I got to perform in their class rooms.

There was a good energy at the school so we had some fun with stories. Generally I told two and improvised one and usually tried to keep these to stories about the bay and the area and to make sure they were lots of fun. This is when knowing a local area comes in handy. You can easily add specific detail to a setting or, perhaps even better, ask a question that allows your audience to add good detail.

An example of this is the story about year 1 students going on excursion down to the bay. As they walked down the hill they saw a pelican come skidding in across the water to land. Twice the pelican plunged its beak into the water, caught a fish and swallowed it. The third time though it caught a sand shoe full of old bones and a map, a treasure map. Of course the children had to follow the map and when they did the pelican followed them. They went along the foreshore to the old wading pool a favorite spot for all local children. It was nice to be able to ask, "Is there a slippery slide in the middle of the pool now?" and have them show off their local knowledge, "Yes, they built a new one."

View Larger Map

(Here's the wading pool in the middle of its refurbishment.)

They found the treasure at the bottom of the wading pool but when they opened up the treasure chest, it was the pelican that filled its beak and flew off with it.

Another of the local interest points is the mangrove board walk so that had to be in a story as well. Because we were talking about pets (I'd told one of my pet stories 'Socks the Kitten'), the leash free dog exercise area was offered by the children as an important detail.

View Larger Map

I did wonder momentarily whether or not the idea of a T-rex's eyeball hanging in a spider web was a good idea or not, after all, I'd never seen either a Trex or one of its eyes anywhere near the board walk, but who am I to get in the way of a good story idea? Needless to say, Jack was saved from the T-rex and his favourite dog Rover helped. The children did think it was a good idea to tell the story at other schools so I think I might just do that.

From angels by the seaside come very salty stories. So thank you Guardian Angels for asking me to perform as part of your book week celebrations.

Ali-Curung Catch Up

2008-08-24T19:44:00.002+10:00

Spent some pleasant time yesterday with four women artists from Ali-Curung in the Northern Territory on Saturday. We had met them all in Ali-Curung when we were up there doing digital stories earlier this year. They were in Brisbane because the Footsteps Gallery in Anne Street in the city was hosting an exhibition of Ali-Curung Art.

One of the DVD's of digital stories we created in Ali-Curung was projected at the exhibition opening as was the video of the opening of their own art gallery this year.

We took them down to the West End markets, ate Spring Rolls and Curry Puffs under the fig trees and took photos by the river. We heard stories of course about what's been happening in Ali-Curung since we were there and what stories they would like recorded.

So if you would like to see some visual art with soul and story drop along to the Footsteps Gallery in the old School of Arts Building in Anne Street in the city.

Little Drummer Boy

2008-08-22T22:39:00.003+10:00

Perhaps today I discovered why I enjoy telling African stories. Actually I suspect I discovered yet again one reason why I enjoy telling to young children.

I was performing at a Child Care Centre telling stories to an audience from below 2 years old up to 5 years old. Sometimes I start a show quietly and sometimes I start with a lot of jokes but less often I decide I have to start with lots of energy and audience participation. This was one of those so I got out my Djembe and as soon as I started playing, I immediately noticed a very young 2 year old boy who had just the biggest smile and was clapping with so much enthusiasm.

It was such a pleasure to see how much he was enjoying it and how uninhibited he was. I found out after the show that his family had come to Australia from West Africa - the home of the Djembe - so I guess it wasn't so surprising.

St. Joseph's Book Week

2008-08-19T13:30:00.008+10:00

Ahh! - very pleasant morning at St. Joseph's on Gregory Tce with year five students. A good time was had by all..

Head of Library, Helen Stower, put it well in her request for the sessions - 'The purpose of the sessions is purely to build a love of story. For the students to be involved in a dynamic story telling session which is fun and builds their appreciation for story.' By the reaction of students and teachers, I think we managed that.

Each of the first three sessions started with a folktale such as 'Kassa the Brave', 'Thomas Rhuag the Seal Catcher', 'The Bell of Four Metals' and the 4 th session with a group of 'Exceptional Learners Writers Group' a good old Australian Tall Story 'The Big Red Roo'. I then usually followed up with a story created by similar aged students in other places including one from last weeks trip to Emerald - 'The Hand'.

Then we started them along the way to creating their own stories. One was about a student's funny experience when he went to a school fete. Another was about two students who saw a strange old boat steaming up Oxley Creek behind Terrace's playing fields at Tennyson. A third was about ghosts and blood and the tunnel between the school and Victoria Park and the fourth was about a school social studies history tour around Spring Hill and the Old Wind Mill on Wickham Terrace and the ghost of someone unfortunate enough to be hung from one of the sails.

I'm looking forward to publishing some of these stories on this blog.

Thank you St. Joseph's for a good mornings creative work and a wonderful venue in the hall lined with student class and sports photos.

Book Week 2008

2008-08-18T22:10:00.003+10:00

Had a great first day of Book Week performing at Kurwongbah State Primary with lower school students today. The library was really buzzing with classes all day so I was performing in the 'hall'. It was huge but pretty good acoustics so it was a reasonable venue. It really reminded me that the ideal venue for a storytelling session is one that gives the audience a snug fit.

Because of the Olympics teachers were keen for me tell stories from a range of different countries and just tell to encourage a love of stories and storytelling which, for a storyteller, seems just perfect. Ended up telling quite a few stories that had gold in them - not surprising I suppose with all that questing for gold happening in Bejing.

The Fuel Your Mind theme seems to be taken up with enthusiasm by teachers and librarians. So far my prize goes to one of the classes at St Patricks in Emerald. They had constructed a 'petrol pump' full of books that lit up with party lights when you inserted the nozzle into the tank of a 'brain shaped car'. As students pushed the nozzle into the tank, the car lit up, the wheels whizzed around and the movement activated eyes flashed on and off and looked from side to side. Thought that was cool.

A world of stories

2008-08-17T11:14:00.010+10:00

I'm back to Brisbane and I feel both immersed and bereft of stories. I've just spent the week in Emerald telling stories to and creating stories with students in five different schools. It was both fun and hard work.

During the week I was both immersed in storytelling and its wonderful energy but also banging hard up against situations that, on reflection, demonstrated that so many people in our work and domestic cultures have no appreciation of the value of stories or even, I suspect, take a subconcious stand against either what stories represent or against any other stories apart from those that guide their own lives.

Now, on the weekend, recovering from the hard voice work of the week, I've looked for refuge in stories. Last night I watched TV but the stories were pretty unsatisfactory. Friday night on the ABC is 'crime night' and, yes, I could escape into a story, a different world, but it was a pretty ugly crime world in urban UK. I gave up on that. There was a bit of drama in the olympic weightlifting with one of the Chinese competitors achieving a world record lift and then being told it didn't count and he would have to do it again. Did he? Yes, the Chinese Atlas, did the lift again even better than the first time. I would have liked to hear his story.

The soccer match between Brazil and The Cameroons was a reasonably interesting story - not quite David and Goliath but a bit like that - but it got a bit repetitive. Finally Brazil got its act together and scored a goal and then a second. I'd turned it off before the second goal however, I'd lost interest in that story.

I retreated into a book. What did I read? - one of the Brother Cadfael medieval 'who-done-its'. A number of times as I read it I was reminded of one of the things I was trying to convey to students up at Emerald. Stories are made more interesting and more accessible if you put some detail into them. Detail the setting enough so that listeners or readers can take themselves there. Detail the characters enough so that listeners can either identify with the character or at least know how to behave around them.

Ellis Peters does this well. I find it easy to relax into that medieval world of friaries, villages, castles and cathedrals that she creates. The balance isn't quite right for me. I would like a little more action in amongst the world creation.

My other refuge is our back garden. I feel so blessed by the quality of the light in it at the moment. It's a little world of light and leaves, trees and birds and the occasional blue tongued lizard. I like the balance of wildness and order, dirt and concrete path, grass and pavers. I wonder what story or stories it suggests for me? I suspect its a strange mixture of wild beginnings of the human species, my playing in Queensland rainforest and bush as a child and more.

'The Hand'- a gruesome story.

2008-08-15T22:28:00.006+10:00

Once in Emerald, two girls were walking through a tunnel. The tunnel was well known to locals, as it was a quick and easy short-cut that connected the main road to the area behind Mitre-10. However, the tunnel was sinister and parents always told children not to go through it.

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The girls were returning after buying a take-away dinner for their family, McDonalds and KFC for themselves and a Red Rooster for their younger brother. The night was cold and it looked like rain, so the girls were desperate to get home into their warm house.

"Come on, lets go through the tunnel, " said one of the girls.
"What? The tunnel! It's way too dark to go through there!" exclaimed the other.
"No way, there are lights all the way along. It'll be fun!" urged the first girl.

The second girl, just wanting to get home reluctantly agreed and into the tunnel they went.

As they walked through the tunnel, the girls were starting to regret their decision. Nevertheless, they continued along the seemingly endless tunnel. They were nearing the end when they heard mumbling.

"What was that?!" whispered on of the girls. The first girl hushed were and nudged a crumpled heap with her toe. Just then for the first ime, the girls noticed a smell - a vile odour filled the tunnel. It seemed to be coming from ................... the lump.

The lump began to move. The mumbling became louder and the odd word became recognisable. The man, they were fairly sure now that the lump was a man, rose to his feet.

The dumbstruck girls said the first thing that came into their heads.

"What is that smell?" The drunk man grinned, and from behind his back he produced a .................... a hand - a dead, rotting, maggot-infested hand. The girls screamed. The man slowly shook the hand, back and forth, back and forth. Two greenish-yellow fingernails dropped off the hand and onto the floor of the tunnel. The girls screamed again, louder this time.

"Whose hand is that?!" asked one of the terrified girls

The man broke into tears, "This hand belongs to the one of the greatest men who ever lived, my, my, my ............ brother!" The man staggered around as the girls tried to push past him and he fell back to the ground and into oblivion and the hand disappeared.

The girls ran home as fast as they could

"Where have you two been?" shouted their mother as they entered the house, puffing and panting.

"Did you get my Red Rooster?" demanded their brother. One of the girls shot him a dirty look while the other threw him the bag.

"Mum, mum, you'll never believe what we saw!" said one of the girls excitedly.
"A man, an old homeless man, just lying around in the tunnel. And guess what he had. A hand! A real live hand!"

"Are you sure? Absolutely positive?"

"Yes mum! Call the police or something! Please!"

"OK, Ok, Ok. I'll call them now. What's that smell by the way?" said their mother as she walked towards the phone.

Meanwhile, their little brother was opening his Red Rooster bag, "Oh, ha, ha, ha!"

"Ha, ha what?" said one of the girls.

"You think it's really funny don't you, putting rubber hand on top of my Red Rooster don't you. Well here's what I think of it." He grabbed the hand a took a bite out of it.

"Oh yuck! You are so gross! That was THE HAND!" screamed one of the girls. The brothers face turned pale, pale as a ghost. He ran to the bathroom and the family could hear the retching from the other end of the house.

"Right! That's it. I'm calling the police," said the mother. Then she took what was left of the hand, put it in a plastic hand and left it on the front porch.

It wasn't long before they heard a car pull up out front and Constable Pratt was at the door.

"Did you ring the police?" The constable asked the mother.
"Well, yes ....., yes, I did," the mother said, slightly uncomfortable and not knowing how to address such a figure of authority. "But it's the girls who know the story."

"Well then, what's this about a hand?" he said, looking at the girls.

After they told him the story, he went out to look at the hand.

"So where is it? inquired the constable.

"Well, it's right over here .................," the mothers voice faltered. "Well it was,"

As the family stood silently contemplating the spot where the hand had been, they heard, "Grrrr, woof, woof, woof, woof." And with that their family dog came trotting around the corner, with the old, rotting, smelly hand in his mouth.

If that wasn't bad enough, out of the darkness lurched the drunk, roaring incoherently at the dog. The dog dropped the hand and took off for the back yard. The drunk fell onto the ground clasping the hand to his chest and fell asleep.

"Is this the man," constable Pratt asked.

"That's him, that's him!" said the girls.

The old drunk was dragged into the back of the police car and the hand was put carefully into a specimen bag and placed in a grey box in the boot of the car.

"Thank's," said the constable. "Enjoy your tea!"

They didn't see the old man again or the hand and it took the children a while to start using the tunnel short cut again. Now they rush through it and jump at the slightest strange sound. It's strange, there used to be cans and rubbish strewn around but now it's always mysteriously cleaned every night, especially the area around a little white cross.

(Story created by Daryll Bellingham, Storyteller and the year 6/7 students at Denison State School. Written by Jessamy Routley.)

Sam and the Shipping Container

2008-08-13T16:24:00.017+10:00

Sam lives in Emerald, a growing town in the middle of Queensland. One of his favourite places is the top of the old reddish-brown shipping or cargo container which sits in his backyard.

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Sam likes climbing up there, sitting quietly and watching the clouds float across the sky or hearing the cockatoos fly screeching home to their nearby roosting tree.

One afternoon after school, Sam had climbed up on top of the cargo container again and was listening to two girls talking in one of his neighbouring yards.

"Hey yah, what're ya doing on the weekend?"

"Dad said we can take the jet skis out to Fairburn Dam. Want to come?"

"Oh cool, I'll come," said Sam.

"Go away Sam. Stop listening to us. Anyway you can't come because you haven't got a jet ski - ha!"

"I don't care," said Sam but he did. He jumped off the shipping container and kicked his football as hard as he could. It slammed into the rubbish bin near the fence and knocked it over.

Sam stomped into the house slamming the screen door as he went. He sprawled onto the lounge chair and turned on the TV.

"What's wrong Sam?" said his Mum.

"Nothing."

Sam's Mum came into the lounge room and gave him a hug.

"You know Sam, sometimes you have to wait a little bit to get what you want."

"What do you mean Mum?"

"Well inside that shipping container you like to climb on is ...."

"What Mum?"

"... a jet ski."

"Ohh. Sick! Can we go out to Fairburn Dam on the weekend?"

"Nope. Sorry. You'll have to wait a bit longer because we're still saving up for the trailer."

"Ohhh, Mum."

"Don't worry Sam, we'll soon have enough money to buy the trailer and we'll be able to go jet skiing out at the dam."

But Sam couldn't wait and as he watched TV he hatched a plan. That night when everyone was asleep, he snuck down the hall, carefully lifted the keys off the hook in the hall and silently walked outside to the shipping container. He tried the keys in the padlock until one turned and the hasp clicked open. Sam carefully swung the container door open, hoping it wouldn't squeak too much.

He flashed his torch inside and there amongst the cardboard removalist boxes was a large wooden crate and on the side was the stencilled outline of a jet ski - "Yes!"

Sam stayed up the whole night dismantling the crate. The jet ski looked wonderful but Sam had a problem. How was he going to get it to the dam? It took Sam quite a while to think of a solution. He had to climb up on the roof of the cargo container and jump off three times before he remembered that his friend Joel liked go-carting. He ran as fast as he could over to Joel's place and knocked on his window, "Joel. Joel. I want to borrow your go-kart."

"Huhhhhh, what?" yawned Joel?

"Wake up Joel. I want to borrow your go-kart."

"What will you give me to play with. Have you got an x-box?"

"What about my new laptop. It's got some great games and I've got three DVDs you can watch."

"Cool. Here's my helmet. Be careful."

"Don't worry. I will. Thanks."

Sam pushed Joel's go-kart at least two blocks away before he started it. 'Raaaa, raaaa, raaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.' Off he went driving down the back streets towards his house. He turned the ignition off before he got near the house and coasted in silence down the driveway and stopped near the shipping container.

"Sick. All I need now is a trailer. What can I use?"

Sam used the side of the wooden crate and to the bottom he screwed his skateboard on one end and two of his sister's roller blades on the other end. Then he tied the jet ski to his trailer with five ockey straps and tied the trailer to the go-kart. He put on the helmet, started up the go-kart and roared down the driveway and out of the street before his parents woke up.

"Yahoooooo! We're off to ski at Fairburn. Yes!"

Soon Sam ran out of back streets and had to drive on the main road towards the Dam, going as fast as he could. He felt great as the farms sped by and he got closer and closer. Well he felt great until he heard the sound of a police siren behind him. Sure enough there was a police car driving along beside him. The red and blue lights were flashing and an angry looking police man was telling him to stop and pull over.

Sam knew he had to pull over. The police man hopped out of his car and "Right young Sam. You're in trouble."

"Trouble? Why? I was just going jet skiing out to Fairburn Dam. Everyone goes out there."

"Yes Sam but not everyone tries to do it with an unregistered go-kart and an illegal trailer. You'll have to leave it here and come back to your parents with me."

"Ohhhh!"

"Don't Ohhhh me Sam. Get into the police car you little squirt!"

Before Sam could unbuckle his seat belt he heard, "Base to highway patrol one, Base to highway patrol one, there's an emergency at Fairburn Dam. Two jet skis have collided in the middle of dam. Attend immediately to help in rescue!"

"Rescue!" said the policeman, "I can't swim!"

"I can," said Sam, "I got my bronze certificate in lifesaving last year. I'll help."

He started up the go-kart, "Ra, ra, raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" and went speeding as fast as he could along the road to Fairburn Dam.

When he got there, sure enough, he could see the two jet skis out in the middle of the dam and holding on for dear life were the two girls.

Sam went speeding through the car park and down the boat ramp. He hit the brakes and spun the steering wheel as fast as he could. The trailer spun around and the jet ski slipped off from under the ockie straps and into the water with a splash. Sam jumped off the go-kart and onto the seat of the jet ski. "Reeeeeeee, reeeeee, reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh!" He was off speeding across the dam towards the crash scene.

"This is fun. Yehhhh!"

Sam steered the jet ski around the two girls and helped them both onto the back of the ski. Slowly this time, he headed towards the shore.

As he got back, people were cheering, "Yey Sam. Good one!"

Waiting for him beside the police car were his parents. "Good one Sam. We're proud of you. Your our hero but .........

............ you're grounded for 3 months."

Sam spent a lot of time on top of that shipping container for the next 3 months but at least the girls he rescued spoke to him sometimes.

('Sam and the Shipping Container' was created by Daryll Bellingham and the Year 4 and 5 students at Emerald State School on 13th August, 2008 ©)(Photos with thanks from www.ausiecampovenforum.com and flickr download photographer - QbiT)

The Sleeping Dragline - a story from Anakie

2008-08-12T20:14:00.006+10:00

Had a great time out at Anakie School today. It's a small bush school servicing the small towns of the Gem Fields area. The atmosphere is really positive and the students are friendly and creative. They were getting ready to participate in the Gemfest happening there this week. The year 6/7's had made a Chinese Dragon for a dragon dance and I was able to help them a bit with their drumming.

Dragons and gems and mining were really popular topics for the stories we improvised including this one below created with the Prep, Yr 1 and 2 students.

The Sleeping Dragline.

Now every knows that around the town of Emerald in Central Queensland there are lots of coal mines. Underneath the earth there is so much black coal that the miners dig it up with huge machines called draglines and load the coal onto trains to take to the ships waiting to take it to China and Japan.

One morning three children were sitting at home eating their breakfast and watching their Dad pack some lunch to take to work at the coal mine.

"Are you going to dig up lots of coal today Dad?" asked one.

"No. I don't think so. We've got to repair the dragline. It's not working. I think it's gone to sleep."

"Maybe if you say the right magic words it'll wake up," said the girl.

"Maybe it's like Sleeping Beauty and you have to give it a kiss on it's mouth and then it'll wake up," said one of the boys.

"Well maybe I'll have to do one of those if we can't get it started," said their father, "Now don't forget to clean your teeth before you go to school. I'll see you after work."

"Bye Dad."

Their father jumped into his four wheel drive ute and drove off to work at the mine as the children got ready for school. He drove out of town, through the bush and into the coal mine. He parked his ute in the carpark, put on his safety helmet, picked up his tool kit and joined the work crew in front of the huge dragline down in the open cut mine.

"Look at it," said one of the miners, "You great, ugly, expensive bit of machinery get to work, you lazy machine!"

He turned the key in the switch to start up the dragline but it just lay there like it was sleeping.

"My boy said I should try giving it a kiss and then it might wake up like sleeping beauty."

"Oh yuck, I'd rather try magic words. Abracadbra, Abracadabra, Abracadabra. Wake up, Wake up, Wake up - aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!"

No knew whether it was the magic words or the scream but the dragline woke up and began to move. The huge scoop opened and closed and began to swoop down towards the men.

"Watch out. That scoop is coming for us!"

The men started to run but they weren't quick enough, the scoop had turned into a giant claw and had grabbed them. The big treads had turned into legs and out of the body of the drag line had sprouted wings. The drag line had turned into a dragon.

It leapt out of the coal mine and flew off with the men, roaring as it went.

Back in Anakie, the children were lined up at the school parade listening to the Principal telling them all about the GemFest that was happening that week. They heard a roar and looked up into the sky and saw the dragon flying towards the school.

Bigger and bigger it got as it flew closer. "Look at that!" Every student and every teacher looked up into the sky. They saw the huge wings beating the sky with sound of drums, the long tail swishing from side to side, the enormous mouth with its cruel curved teeth and its sharp claws holding ....... holding ............ five struggling coal miners. "Help! Help!"

"Hey! That's Dad! That dragons got our Dad!"

"What are we going to do?"

"It's probably flying towards the old volcano. If it gets up there we'll never find them."

"We'll have to lassoo it as it goes past. Anyone got a rope."

"What about the tug-of-war rope? It's with the phys-ed gear."

Five students ran and got the rope. One climbed up the gum tree with the rope and dropped the end down by the tuck shop. They tied a big knot and then stood in the front yard of the school near the gate.

They started to sing out - "Ha, ha Dragon. Ha, ha Dragon.You can't catch us. You can't catch us!"

The dragon looked down and saw the children. He roared a roar so loud the children's teeth shook and their hats blew off in the blast of the dragons foul breath.

"He's coming! Get ready to duck!"

The dragon flew down towards them with his spare claws stretched out to grab them, his eyes glowing red like burning rubies. His head and neck flew through the loop of the rope but his wings and body were too big.

The rope snapped tight around the dragon's wings and he crashed to the ground. The coal miners rolled out of the dragon's huge bucket claw and ran under the school with the children.

The dragon opened his mouth and the flames burnt the rope. He beat his wings and leapt into the sky again. The children watched him flying towards the old volcano.

"Hey Dad. You woke up the Dragon .... I mean the Drag-line."

'Yeh, kids. Thanks for that. We owe you one."

No one really knows what the dragon did at the old volcano although there have been reports about it terrorising students and tourists who visit there. Just ask ask the Year 6/7 students at Anakie about their excursion. Some people say though that the dragon flies back to the mine every morning to dig in the coal. We found this photo of a dragline blowing smoke at Ensham mine

(This story was created by Daryll Bellingham, Storyteller and the Prep, Year 1 and Year 2 students at Anakie State School - 12th August 2008. Photo courtesy of Ensham mines and www.gtp.com.au)

Stories from Emerald North - 1

2008-08-11T20:23:00.006+10:00

Doing a nice project this week in schools around Emerald. First up was Emerald North State School with P - 4 students. It's been a good day telling and creating stories in the phys ed room. One of the pleasures was creating a new story based on one of the folk tales from China I told - 'Ming Li and the Tortoise'. In the story the tortoise had a special mark on its head so I thought a story about an animal that one would normally find in Emerald but had a special mark on it would be a good start for a story.

The students decided that a Bearded Dragon subject for the story and we began. Here's the story:-

The Emerald Dragons

Emerald is a nice place to live. There's plenty of work for parents and the children can play lots of sport. One day some children were kicking a football around at Emerald North School and one of the boys said, "Hey! Want to play a game that my Dad used to play when he went to school?"

"What's it called?"

"Force-em-back. You see there are two teams. One team kicks the ball to the other and if they catch it on the full they can advance 5 steps and kick it back but if they don't they have to kick it from where they stop it. Eventually one of the teams is forced right back to the fence and they lose."

Well that's what they did. The game was going fine until one of the kicks went so high it went right over the school fence. No one knows whether there was a sudden gust of wind or what but that ball flew over the neighbouring houses towards the river with the team in hot pursuit.

They saw it flying over the trees and thought, "Oh no someone is going to have to swim for it."

When they got to the river bank however, the ball wasn't floating on the water or anything. They could see it anywhere. All there was in sight was a bearded dragon sitting on a log.

One of the girls said, "That bearded dragon looks a bit strange. It's got marks on its back."

"Maybe the ball landed on it's back and left those marks. They look like the marks of a football."

"No," said the girl, "The marks are on the inside. Hey I think the football has turned into a bearded dragon."

"Ha, ha! Don't be silly. How can a football be turned into a bearded dragon?"

"Yeh. I know but let's pretend. We'll take it back and pretend it's the football. Should be a laugh."

Well that's what they did. They picked up the bearded dragon and took it back to the school fence and said, "Sorry it took so long but the ball turned into a bearded dragon and we'll have to kick it instead."

They held it up and pretended to kick it but the bearded dragon flew from their grasp went sailing up into the air and down towards the other team.

'Catch it! Catch it!"

As the bearded dragon bounced the whole team dived on it and grabbed hold but they could not stop the dragon it flew up into the air with the students holding on. Higher and higher it went and they all went flying up and over towards the river.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Call the Principal! Call the teachers! Help!"

The other students ran into the office and called out "Emergency! Emergency! The kids have disappeared! "

Admin dialed 000 and it wasn't long before there was police, ambulance and fire brigade in attendance. Every headed down towards the river and started searching for the missing students. They couldn't find them any where. Once the police and fire brigade had gone home however, the students saw 10 little bearded dragons sitting on a log. They took them back to the school and fed them all their favourite foods - pies, sausage rolls, chocolate and ice cream - and eventually they started to grow slowly back into children again. Do you know what though, every single one of them had long skinny finger nails and marks on their backs like football laces.

It's not surprising, I suppose, that no one plays 'Force-em-back' at Emerald North School these days. They do take special care of bearded dragons though.

Here's where it all happened -
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(Story created by Daryll Bellingham, Storyteller and students from year 1b/2a at Emerald North School, following a Chinese folktale about a magic tortoise with a special mark on its head.)

Good Luck

2008-08-08T23:15:00.003+10:00

Had the pleasure of friend and fellow performer Dennis Murphy staying at our place last night. Dennis is the puppeteer of Murphy's Puppets and a wonderful performer. He's been up in Brisbane and Toowoomba on a short tour performing in schools and we asked him if he would mind showing our young neighbours, Abbey and Liam, a couple of his puppets. They laughed and giggled so delightfully and their father commented on how quickly he forgot that it was Dennis that was supplying the voice for his puppets.

It was a pleasure to see but it was the something that Dennis said as I was setting out to perform this morning that I thought was worth commenting on. He said, "Good luck." as I walked out the door and I said something like 'Oh I'll be fine.' He said, 'Yes of course. Sometimes if people say that to me I'll say, "Well the first year or two I was performing it felt like I needed luck but not any more. Now I don't need it. Now I use my skill."

It's true of course. As you build your performance skills they provide a really solid base to perform and experiment from. It's a good feeling.

A 'Young and Active' Challenge

2008-08-07T13:41:00.002+10:00

Two show day and both of them were at two of my regular kindergartens with younger pre-preps. At the second of the centres, the staff were clearly a bit concerned that I would not be able to entertain the children well enough so that they would sit for 45 minutes. They were proposing two stories inside and a third outside as a roving story.

Now, although I was interested in the possibility, I wasn't too keen for a number of reasons. One is that outside shows have a completely different sound projection challenge and I am so used to telling inside. A second reason is that an inside show means that it is reasonably straight forward setting up and maintaining a structure useful for storytelling. Once you go outside or are moving around, you become more a people movement manager than a storyteller. A third reason is that my public liability insurance is quite vague about my coverage when performing outside and I don't really like to stretch it that much.

Really though, I was slightly miffed that they thought I couldn't entertain young children for 45 minutes at a stretch. After all, I've been doing just that for years.

I did think to ask if they had any special needs children and it turned out they did. Their needs were undiagnosed but did relate to short attention span and wanting to be physical. Well forewarned I took up the challenge and I'm glad I did. The 'special needs' children were pretty easy to spot and between my storytelling and the care and support of the staff. Every single child stayed for the whole 45 minutes and enjoyed the show.

I told 'The Little Blue Train Goes to the Beach' one of my settling down stories, 'The Old Man and the Drum' with lots of clapping and animal noises and 'The Wheels On the Bus' which starts off with the familiar song and improvises an ending with the audience that usually involves a grandpa that snores on the bus but catches the bank robber. I told with one eye and ear on the 'special needs' children and one on the general energy level of the whole group. My aim was to make sure that they had fun, got to be physical with out going over the top or changing the story and had a good variety of quite calm times and noisy expressive ones.

When I left the staff were happy with the result and so were the kids - mission accomplished.

Performance Areas

2008-08-04T22:41:00.004+10:00

Had the pleasure of performing at a good child care centre or early childhood centre at Fig Tree Pocket this morning. It's one of my regulars - I've been performing there almost every year since 1994.

One of the things that stands out about the centre, apart from its consistently high standard of care is the built in stepped audience seating in the pre-prep room. The children like sitting there, I think, and they were already there when I arrived. I don't though, even though it gives the children a really good view of my performing, because it also gives them a really good view of everything else that is happening in the room.

Late arrivals, teachers moving around, parents popping lunches etc in lockers - it's all visible. So, after trying it once or twice, I always want to move them off the stepped seats and onto the carpet on the floor. I can then perform with my back to the steps and distractions are kept to a minimum.

So if there are any architects out there who are thinking of putting in special seating or a 'story pit' or something similar, please have a good word with an early childhood performer first.

Wednesday 30th July - old stories - new stories

2008-07-30T14:42:00.004+10:00

Had a great session today out at Samford State School with one of the year 5 classes. It was a workshop in how to create new stories for telling.

Of course I started by telling a story. One of the things I found interesting was that they chose 'a Scottish story' when I offered them a choice of Australian, African or Scottish story to start with. I told them a version of one of the traditional selkie stories 'Thomas Rhuag the Seal Catcher'. (Thank you to Moses Aaron for first sharing the story with me. I loved telling the story as 3-up with you and Nicole at the SA National Storytelling Festival.)

After that I told an Australian story - one created at a Literary Festival in Springsure some years back - 'The Gingie Silos'. The good thing about telling this one is that students realise that they might be able to create a dramatic tell-able story themselves.

Once our year 5's realised that, we were away creating a brand new story about something they knew a reasonable amount about - their local area.

One thing that I enjoyed was drawing on my own childhood experiences having picnics in the Samford Valley. It really made describing the local setting both easy and a way of sharing the experience of creating the story with the class. We became a creative team because we shared knowledge of that setting.

I'm looking forward to hearing what adventures the four different teams came up with.

Sourcing Tall Stories and Yarns

2008-07-28T18:31:00.005+10:00

As a storyteller with a website called 'Storytelling In Australia' it's not surprising that I get an email from time to time asking me about 'tall stories' and 'yarns' and where to find them. Here's one from Van below.

G'day Daryll
I found your name and email address on the 'net. I hope you do not mind this contact.
I am 63, live in semi-retired fashion on the Central Coast of NSW, and I have just finished several "swag" tours attached to a round-Oz motor bike trip. Great!!

On the swag tours I had to mix it with, typically, a smallish bunch of Australian old-timers such as myself, and a bunch of young'uns from overseas. Again typically, the oldies know the first line of half a dozen songs and bugger all tall-stories, and I'm not much better so I make up stories. The young'uns absolutely LOVE it. But because I am fairly limited in imagination, my stories are less exotic and enthralling than ones I know I have heard [but not remembered well enuff to tell].
So - this email is to see if you can help stear me in the right direction. Can you suggest an author, or even a book or two, which runs short st0ries - both fair dinkum bullshit and fair dinkum stories?

Also - there was a fascination with the Aborigines, and to my never-ending shame, I was unable to tell these people anything, in story form, of the Aboriginal legends and stuff.
Can you help any?
All the best....Van [Davy]

Van, it sounds like you're having a great time and I applaud you for your effort in telling stories around the campfire and making them up as you go as well. It's such an important part of the Aussie storytelling tradition.

However there are plenty of good tall stories out there that are worth finding. When I'm travelling I'll often stop in second hand bookshops and go through the Australian Folklore section looking for books like Bill Wannan's 'Great Australiana - Folklore, Legends, Humour, Yarns'. Bill published quite a few great books. There's an obituary for him on Warren Fahey's site at http://www.warrenfahey.com/articles/wannan.html that gives some more of his titles. A couple of good ones are:

- 'Come in Spinner :A Treasury of Popular Australian Humour' and
- 'Bullockies Beauts and Bandicoots: Australia's Greatest Yarns'.

Look for other people like Bill Scott and Patsy Adam-Smith eg,'The Shearers'. Also don't forget about some of our bush ballads. A lot of those old songs are stories in their own right. An old collection but a nice one if you find it is 'Favourite Australian Bush Songs' compiled by Lionel Long and Graham Jenkin and 'The Bushwakers Australian Song Book' is a good collection.

Yarns are good value as well. They're not tall stories as such but laid back stories about events and people and day to day life. Some of Bill Scott's collections are great, for example, 'The Australian Yarn'.

Now just to show that yarns are stilll being created and collected there's an interesting little collection on line at http://www.clickart-gallery.com/yarns/ where you can download a pdf of collected yarns from around Australia.

Another tip is to look for local collections of stories or histories about particular towns or regions. They will often have good yarns in them and sometimes tall stories.

You probably should have a couple of 'Crooked Mick' from the Speewah stories in your repertoire as well. You can find a couple here http://members.ozemail.com.au/~macinnis@ozemail.com.au/mickrail.htm thanks to the Macinnis family.

Indigenous stories are another question. Especially because we are in Australia, I believe we need to respect Aboriginal stories and especially the Dreamtime stories. There have been quite a lot published by Indigenous authors and what I would suggest that if you read one and think - 'that's a great story, I really want to tell it' then get in touch with that author through the publisher. You see that particular Aboriginal author would only have published if the story was his or her's to publish. Really though, the best people to tell Dream Time stories are the traditional owners of those stories. When you try to tell them away from the country and culture they are about, they lose their power.

Well there you go. There's some suggestions for you. Keep having fun on the swag tours. Any suggestions of other titles from anyone else is welcome.

Regards

Daryll

Stories & Songs from the Inala Yarning Place

2008-05-23T21:36:00.004+10:00

Met with Aunty Vi McDermott, Aunty Edna Bond and Barry Malezer today to show them the draft of the DVD booklet insert. So far everyone likes the booklet. Colleen from 3E has done a really good job on the layout.

When we showed it to Getano later on he liked it but went over it pretty carefully. We've got a couple of corrections to make.

Getano uploaded the roughcut version of one of the new songs to YouTube. It sounds good but the video will be heaps better on the DVD. We should be launching it in NAIDOC week all going well.

Back from Ali-Curung

2008-05-21T17:20:00.021+10:00

For the last few weeks Karen and I have been in the Northern Territory working and having a short holiday. The work was the Picture This digital storytelling project in Ali-Curung, a remote Aboriginal community in Central Northern Territory. Although it is only 40 kms off the Stuart Highway it is about 5 hours from Alice Springs and 4 hours from Tennant Creek.

We were working out of the Arlpwe Art Centre collecting digital stories for publication and heard some wonderful and sometimes quite amazing personal stories. The first storyteller was Mr Bird, an 80 something year old hard working boomerang maker. He sat in the men's area at the Art Centre and told his stories about working to help set up the township when it was called the Warrabri Welfare Settlement.

One of the Art Centre's workers, Valerie Nelson, told us stories of about her grandmother passing on stories to her. We recorded the story of the painting of Aaki (Blackberry Juice), a dreamtime story, passed on from her grandmother. Her father, Mr Nelson, told us the story about how he survived, as a child, the Conniston Massacre of 1928.

The Ali-Curung Country Gospel band asked us to record their songs on the 'verandah' of Lenny's house. They were so pleased to get a a DVD of their songs that they take out to remote settlements and outstations.

Maureen O'Keefe told us funny stories about the old ladies she grew up with and took us out looking for bush tucker and medicine.

We learnt so much
in two short weeks about life
in Ali-Curung, it seems strange
now to be back in a city
with traffic and broadband and
water restrictions.

Discovering Digital Stories intro

2008-04-23T23:25:00.000+10:00

2 What specific storytelling strategy do you use and why?

2008-04-02T19:32:00.005+10:00

Well I'm back to answering Jill's set of questions (see http://austories.blogspot.com/2008/03/value-of-stories-irish-connection.html). The short answer is that, like most storytellers, I use lots of strategies.

Probably one of the most important is to think well about the audience and guess what sort of stories and what sort of storytelling style they would like. I then attempt to provide stories and style while watching to see if it is working and changing delivery if necessary.

Young children, generally speaking, want to have fun and want to have their energy validated and matched so my storytelling style for young children is quite energetic right from the start.

Older children can find this a bit embarassing so I generally start in a more subdued style with them and gradually slide into more expression and energy. Generally speaking, I believe that all people, young and old, want their real selves (energetic, creative, intelligent, fun loving etc) to be validated. The majority of young children just don't have any 'distress' laid in that gets in the way of enjoying it yet.

So with young children, I will often start a storytelling show with some humour so they have a good laugh and so I can let them know that they can have fun during my show.

The other important part is picking stories appropriate for the age group. This usually means stories that mean something for them. This can be stories about where they live, either locally or nationally, or stories about important issues to them, for example, overcoming dangers (Three Billy Goats Gruff) or exploring boundaries (Three Little Pigs) or even stories about children their own age. Two examples of this last category which also fill some other needs are stories about my own childhood in Maroochydore and in Brisbane. One is about going fishing with my Dad and the other is an adventure with my first pet - a kitten called Socks.

It is interesting to note that although I can tell both of these stories to adults as examples of stories I tell to young children, older children really squirm if I attempt to tell them.

So there you go Irish Jill the answer is 'lots of strategies'.

Photos from the Inala Concert & Recording Session

2008-04-02T19:25:00.002+10:00

Some images from the Stories & Songs from the Inala Yarning Place Project

2008-04-02T18:24:00.002+10:00

Drought on Akimba and Bamba's farms?

2008-03-27T16:14:00.000+10:00

Here's the image that came with the retelling of the 'Akimba and the
Magic Cow' story from Rochedale State School. There is a merciless sun
up there in that blue, blue sky and it's killed the crops on the farm.

Thank you again Year 3's. It's great to be reminded of a telling.

Daryll

Feedback from some Year 3 Students

2008-03-27T16:01:00.000+10:00

One of the pleasures of storytelling is when you get feedback from
students and teachers who've enjoyed one of your performances. Here's
one that I particularly enjoyed receiving particularly because it is
accompanied by a retelling of one of the stories I told - 'Akimba and
the Magic Cow', a digital illustration for the story and a thank you
page signed by 49 students.

Thank you students from year 3 at Rochedale. I enjoyed the visit to
your school and really enjoyed telling you my stories.

Daryll Bellingham, Storyteller

Value of Stories - revisited

2008-03-11T15:03:00.003+10:00

Tuesday afternoon, 3:30pm. Had one performance today once again with a Creche and Kindergarten Preprep group at one of my regular community kindergartens. They were around 4 years old and totaled around 40 children.

It was a good show. The children were enthusiastic, well warmed up to stories and storytelling. The staff were very supportive and had specific requests as to which of my stories they would like and which themes they would like me to explore - eg Easter.

I told three stories as per usual. 'The Tailor' or 'Something for Nothing' (this had been requested), 'The Little Blue Train takes the children to the farm (with an Easter theme) and 'Dragon Boy' ( a faux Chinese folktale I created with preschoolers last year).

As a performance artist I really enjoyed the way the audience joined in so enthusiastically and offered little gifts of possibilities for the stories.

Talking to one of the Directors afterward, I mentioned these interview questions and what she thought the value of stories and storytelling were to children. She includes daily reading and storytelling in her program and said, 'Stories and storytelling are so empowering for children. It gives them power over language and expression and communication.' (paraphrased)

I thought 'Yes! That puts it very clearly.'

Yes stories are fun and entertaining and thought provoking and provide a shared experience but, possibly most importantly, for children in particular, storytelling and stories are empowering.

That segues most opportunely into my answer for Q2 but more of that in the next post.

The Value of Stories & the Irish Connection

2008-03-10T22:28:00.003+10:00

What a day. Did a wonderful performance with some older prepreps at Chelmer-Graceville Community Kindergarten. The Director and the children were keen for me to do a story about space. One boy was Astronauting around the centre with a cardboard role 'laser gun' in one hand, a cardboard tube 'walkietalkie' in the other, and a cereal box 'Astronaut Backpack' stickytaped to his back.

This afternoon I was busy trying to sort out insurance bills, why do they all come at once, when I noticed an email from a student inviting me to take part in an 'interview via email' for her research project all about children and storytelling.

This was not the first time I have been asked to do so and I immediately recognised that really what I was being asked to do was to take part in a way that was convenient for the student but a 'bit of a type-a-thon' for me.

Well I suggested we meet and she could shout me a coffee and interview and tape my answers. Well and good but the reply I got back indicated my requester was in Ireland and I was in Australia and a cup of coffee would be a long way off so I though how can I get some good value out of this as well?

Here's my solution. I'll post Jill's questions here. Post my answers and invite comments.

Here's Jill's original email and questions for a start.

On 10/03/2008, at 3:33 AM, Jill Moore wrote:

Hello,
• I am at present in my final year of study and carrying out my research project, I was wondering if you would be willing to answer some questions.
• I have outlined them below.
• I really love your work and would love to learn more.

OUTLINE OF INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR PARTICIPANTS
1 What value do you think stories in general have for young children?
2 What specific storytelling strategy do you use and why?
3 How do you think the strategy works?
4 How do the specific children you work with react to this creative method of storytelling?
5 How does the strategy you use facilitate children undergoing new experiences?
6 Is there any other ways that new experiences can be mediated?
7 How does the strategy you use encourage children to talk about their feelings?
8 Would it be easy to use this strategy in any early year’s service?
9 What type of children/ age group would benefit from this strategy you use most?
10 Did you ever use any other storytelling methods?
11 What skills and qualities do you feel a storyteller or a person using this strategy needs to have?
12 Do you enjoy telling stories?
I would Really appreciate it if you got back to me on this.

Kind regards
Jill Moore

Answer 1
What value do you think stories in general have for young children?

Well, in general, it depends on the age of the children but, in one way, stories have the same value for children as they do for adults. Stories encode cultural, family and personal information in a form that is memorable, fun, creative, multilayered, entertaining, impactful and highly accessible. All that is as true for adults as it is for children. Stories help us to belong. 'I am one of the people that know's and enjoys the story called ...'

Another important thing about stories is that even though they encode information but they don't 'shorthand it ' or 'text it'. A story is a whole story whether it is short or long because it makes use of the narrative structure - the way of recognising and telling a story all around the world. We know when a story has ended or not.

Probably one of the things about stories and children is that generally speaking they haven't forgotten how to have fun and they expect their stories to be fun. That's not to say they can't appreciate a story that is serious - they can. They would just prefer their stories to be fun and playful.

(More answers in subsequent posts.)

2008 a brand new year of storytelling

2008-01-30T21:12:00.000+10:00

Well 2008 is off to a good start. The TownAce's engine has been rebuilt. It's got a new battery and my storytelling energy has been renewed by some time near waterfalls and rivers and forest.

I wonder what wonders 2008 will bring?

We have an exciting project happening with the Indigenous Elders of the Inala Yarning Place Singers. It will finish with a concert and DVD. It's great working with Aunty Vi and Aunty Edna with K.B. and Getano Bann.

In May we're looking forward to working with Elders in the Northern Territory community of Ali Curung.

I'd really like this year to get some of my own CD's and DVD's together as well. Any suggestions?

We're Off to See the Wizard

2008-01-11T09:26:00.000+10:00

Well we didn't follow the Yellow Brick Road, it was the New England Highway and the Newell all the way to Deniliquin. The wizard is Karen's father and he's a wizard at growing tomatoes and book-keeping and he's not bad at telling a story or a yarn when he gets going as well.

The drive down, 2 days, was safe and relatively uneventful. We noticed our regular markers of progress - Cunninghams Gap rainforest, the church at Warwick, the turnoff to Giraween National Park, the location of the old state border gates at Wallangarra, the old emu and kangaroo farm gate posts south of Uralla etc.

They all tell little travelling stories. This time though we can add some different markers.

There was a TV cameraman vidoeing a bunch of flowers left near the site of a tragic truck/car smash that claimed the lives of four teenagers near Warwick. That reminded me of another dramatic smash scence we had driven past on the Newell Highway some years back. A truck driver had gone to sleep and driven his rig through a caravan, totally obliterating it and smashing finally into a substantial ironbark. He looked very dead.

On a brighter note, we finally stopped at Mother of Ducks Lagoon at Guyra, something I've been meaning to do for years. Wasn't much water in the lagoon (in fact it was pretty much dry) but it was good to read about how the local tribe had lived around it and used it for so long.

The Xanthorrheas in the burnt Goonoo State Forest south of Mendooran that had been so easy to see against the blackened and blasted landscape last trip were now casting seed and starting to merge into the regrowth of ironbarks and daisies and acacias.

As we walked around taking photos we disturbed a small stick exposing the white ants underneath to the marauding meat ants. They charged in, seized little golden termites in their pincers and galloped off towards their nest.

There is something very affirming about seeing this regrowth happening. The hard black Xanthorrea seeds will find their place in the soil ready for the next bush fire to create the right conditions for germination. These ecosystems worked out how to adapt to fire long ago. I wonder if we humans could be smart enough to take advantage of fire like this? Aboriginal communities all over Australia have been practicing 'fire stick grazing' for millenia. We should be able to come up with a whole range of possibilities.

Further south, at Alectown, between Peak Hill and Parkes, the garden full of whirlies and gnomes and fairytale characters was still stripped bare and the for sale sign was prominent by the front gate. Last trip Karen stopped and asked what had happened from a woman living in a converted church. Turns out the old man who had been entertaining travellers for years with his quirky garden had passed away and the house had been put on the market. I guess the estate agent said it wouldn't sell with the fantasy garden in place, so it was packed up and sent to the tip.

Karen won the 'who'll see the first emu' bet in a very dry paddock around the turnoff to Urana. I remembered the emus we came across down in the Gulpa Forest one year and the one I nearly collided with when it came charging out of the scrub on the side of the road up near Blackall in Queensland. Jerilderee's lagoon was still dry and waterless. The further south we drove the drier it got.

The Wizard of Oz is still growing tomatoes and doing the BAS for the motorbike shop however. He's keeping the birch tree and his vegie garden alive against the prevails of the drought. We got to Deniliquin just in time to go down to the rissolle with him for tea. I had the roast of the day and a light beer and we toasted the New Year and our journey down that long bitumen road.

Rat Catchers Day

2007-06-26T07:07:00.000+10:00

I got a pleasant surprise yesterday to be rung up by Deb Tribe at ABC local radio in Adelaide and asked if I would do an interview about the Pied Piper of Hamelin for Rat Catchers Day.

How could I possibly resist? The 26th of June should be celebrated. Deb had done a google search and found my version of the story and wanted me to do a three minute version and talk about whether it was true or not.

It was the sort of challenge I couldn't resist. So I googled the Pied Piper of Hamelin and found all sorts of information about it, as you invaribly do with Mr. Google. There is a 'Rattenfangerhaus' in Hamelin and on a wall on it is inscribed the very briefest version of the story I've heard and the date 1284, 26th of June.

Well the live, telephone telling went well - I think. There was just enough room before the news to answer a couple of questions and off I went. Still I wasn't terribly satisfied. I think I wanted to tell one of my rat catchers stories. I suspect we've all got them. Rats are so ubiquitous.

My favourite involves not the famous rat catcher of Hamelin but the humble rat catchers of Brisbane. You see the good councilors of Brisbane in their wisdom employed a squad of rat catchers to go about the town with their faithfull fox terrier doggy companions and dig up and kill rats. They could wander into your back yard sniff around your compost heap or under the pile of firewood and dispose of any rats they found. They don't employ them any more unfortunately but when I was a wee lad they added a little colour and mystery to suburban life. Now one day I got home from Mitchie High to discover that my mother had been thinking of me again.

When the rat catchers had come through the yard that day and found a rat nest, she asked if they could leave one of the cadavers for me to take to my biology class and dissect. Well you can imagine I was pretty pleased about that and sure enough that furry evidence of the rat catchers of Brisbane's trade did contribute to my knowledge of mamalian anatomy.

So a toast to the Rat Catchers of the world. May you take up your silver pipes and your fox terriers and go forth to give us more stories to tell.

p.s. there is supposed to be a Grimms version of it but can't find it in my 'Complete illustrated stories of the Brothers Grimm'. Anyone know what it is called?

Nambour railcast on the way to Bundaberg

2007-02-16T14:48:00.000+10:00

Nambour railcast
Originally uploaded by Austories.

Karen and I were invited to lead an Introduction to Digital Storytelling for Community Cultural Development workshop in Bundaberg on Saturday 17th February. It was great fun and, very sensibly, we opted to travel by train. It was our first trip on the tilt train and, quite frankly, it was great.

What a sophisticated way to travel. We were persuaded to book business class and were glad we did - room to do some workshop preparation, plug in laptops and mobile phone chargers and have a nice meal as well. All the time a very green and damp landscape rolled by for us to enjoy.

We managed to use our mobile phones to take photos and email them to our blogs like the photo above and one we created especially for the workshop. Not that there was coverage the whole time but there was usually enough around towns to get off an email to a blog or collect messages.

The Bundaberg crew was great and we are waiting to see how they go. I'm predicting a quite amazing digital storytelling community cultural development project is going to rise like a Wundabird from Wundaberg.

Deni Sun Festival - benign reality?

2007-01-14T22:01:00.000+10:00

Had the pleasure on Friday and Saturday of dropping down to the park in the middle of Deniliquin and enjoying the delights of the Sun Festival.

It was very easy to be at. The weather was very pleasant. There was a good balance of sunshine and shade from heaps of trees. There was music ( jazz ), icecream, Dennis Murphy's excellent puppet show entertaining young and old, a small market, a range of different activities for kids, vintage car display and more. There was water in the billabong and birds and kids in the trees. Generally speaking, people were behaving quite well as well. It was easy to be there.

The organisers were to be congratulated. The world, at least that part of it, was a better place because of it. I wonder how we can do something similar more often in our lives?

I suspect that a goodly portion of how it worked was a spirit of cooperation. There was nothing desperate about it. When little bits of distress surfaced it was pretty easy to not take notice of them and to concentrate on the beauty of the park and creativity of the people in it.

I wonder what it would take to get that to happen more on the national and global levels?

Southern Rest and Recuperation

2007-01-03T22:05:00.000+10:00

Been down south in Deniliquin for a couple of weeks over Christmas and New Year and starting to feel like I've been on hols. We went for a bike ride with young Peter this afternoon. Out through the houses and into the bush. The roo tracks and forestry roads make for great fun especially when they zoom down into the dry old river beds or billabongs. The forest is so dry with summer and drought. Everything is crackly but then it's down to the river with its gently flowing irrigation water.

It's such a luxury to be riding along beside a river and not being on a concrete or bitumen bikepath - ducks, blue wrens, cormorant in the water.

Wwwwhhhh. What's that. Kangaroos bounding off. Sorry kangaroos. You could have stayed.

Enchanted Forest 'Handover'

2006-12-04T21:45:00.000+10:00

There are moments in a storytellers life that are even more satisfying than others. At two o'clock this afternoon - Monday 4th December, 2006 - I got to enjoy one of those.

Brisbane City Council Councillor Geraldine Knapp (The Gap) was handing over CD's of the Enchanted Forest recordings, artwork and project photograps to the students of year 3H at Ashgrove Primary. The Enchanted Forest Playground project had been funded by her Council Ward Community Grant program.

I had the pleasure of telling them how much other children from all over South Queensland had been enjoying our stories and of telling them one of the new stories that had since been created at another school.

'Well it didn't take long at all. The Enchanted Forest is a bit like that. The boy found the Fairy Queen. He borrowed a silver axe. He found the disappearing tree beside the smelly bat cave and, as quick as you can say 'grotty green goblin', he'd cut a hole in the tree and rescued his sister, two butterflies, a golden beetle and a muddled up wombat.'

(One of the panels created by Gavan Fenlon illustrating one of the stories and using details from children's artwork at the Enchanted Forest Playground in Dorrington Park, Ashgrove.)

It was great to see them enjoying hearing their own voices telling our stories. They were so excited. They were telling me about visiting the playground and about how some children had damaged the story playback equipment.

When I was leaving I said, "Well of course you could go on and write some more Enchanted Forest stories."

There was a silence as the possibility sank in and then one girl said, "With the same characters?"

I think she might.

Bringing Stories Alive at the Maroochy Libraries Workshops Day

2006-11-27T12:23:00.000+10:00

(Jenny, Toni, Amanda and other Maroochy Library staff retelling a story)

What a pleasure it was to run a storytelling workshop for the Maroochy Library staff at the Alexandra Park Conference Centre on Sunday. It would have been hard to find a more alive, active participating group of workshop attendees.

We told stories, explored good storytime strategies, played games and enjoyed a couple of digital stories from library sponsored community workshops.

A well appointed conference room in a shady, bushland setting and the excellent organisation of the day all helped make it a good learning experience for one and all. Well done Maroochy Libraries and a special thanks to Nadia Bowtell.

Wonderful Digital Story from Wales.

2006-09-01T19:10:00.000+10:00

You know by now I'm quite passionate about digital stories - best thing since ... since ... since 'Skippy' so here's a beauty for you to have a quick look at.

It's on Capture Wales and I think it is just so elegantly simple but beautifully storingtellish.

'Flashback' by Ieuan Sheen. Have a listen and let me know what you think.

Ah! What a day!

2006-09-01T18:39:00.000+10:00

What a day. What an amazing storytelling day it has been.

First of all out along the Gateway Motorway to Boondal Kindie. They're old favourites and this group of kinders were just wonderful. They were so easy to perform with. Did a couple of old favourites of mine -'Little Blue Train Takes the Children to the Beach' (what a classic), the Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle - I love it the way children say - 'Hey. I've got that book!) and a great little improvisation about a great big dinosaur and a tiny little mouse who lived in a house in the dinosaurs ear. It was good to see a father on parents roster joining in being a butterfly flying around. He loved it. He was saying how positive the community feel is at the Boondal and I believe it.

Back home and off to Dutton Park Primary School. The Teacher Librarian, Walter Vechio booked me for Children's Book Week performances in the library.

The kids were great and the older they got the better they were - just wonderful kids to perform with. Hats off to parents and teachers. It's good when this happens. It means I can put all of my energy into performing well and creating interesting stories for them.

Once again a mixture of old favourites and improvisations. Created a couple of quite good 'Enchanted Forest Stories' to add to the list. I'm pleased the way the older students still appreciate the fairytale theme. Mind you the adventures get a bit more adventurous and their sense of humour is definitely different. In one story the girl slipped and fell into a pool of dragon's blood and was, of course, turned into a dragon and the boy had to help get her back. It was good fun.

So after my fifth show for the day it was back home and finish off the Arts Queensland Grant Application. I'm hoping for some assistance in business development to cope with the multiple streams of storytelling I'm taking on these days. Would be good. We called the project - 'Creating a New World of Storytelling'. The idea is partly inspired by the 'Planet Creature' web site which creates this imaginary world out past that now mini-planet Pluto somewhere. It partly commemorates the life and creativity of Maeve (a young girl who was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident) and provides resources for families and communities to cope with similar events. It's quite beautiful.

Well that's it. We got the grant application into the post. Thank you to the people who provided support - Rob Whyte from ToadShow, Andrea O'Brian - Young People's Librarian at Ipswich, Browny Jewell from QCAN, Sheryl Anderson from Brisbane City Council and most of all Karen Tunny for helping so much with application.

Ah! What a day!

Southbank Story Magic

2006-08-06T22:11:00.000+10:00

A little bit of story magic happened at Southbank this weekend. Well actually more than one bit.

First of all I was having great fun at the Brisbane International Film Festival Family Fun Day Story Creation workshops as part of the SpeakOut Team. I was working with the participants - children - helping them to create their stories and write them on a piece of butchers paper for them. These sheets of butchers paper became their 'auto cues' as they recorded their voice over and created a short movie with some help from the team on Sony Vegas.

The theme was 'Princes and Princesses' and wonderful stories about brave and courageous princes and beautiful and strong princesses and witches and castles and dragons and all sorts of wonderful creatures were being created and burnt as movies to CDs.

Now, a father and son were interested in doing the Story Creation. The son was keen but the father was clearly distracted. 'Oh my wife is over there. Our younger son has developed a curious phobia. He doesn't want to step on any pebbles.'

Sure enough, standing on the pavers just past the last of the pebblecrete was a mother hugging her worried looking son as he stood on the last of the pavers and refused to step on the pebbles.

Well something went 'Bing!' in my mind and I thought, 'A story. That might work.'

I walked over to the pair and, kneeling down, said to the boy, 'Would you like a story?' He looked a little reluctant but I began telling him a story about a pebble that was crying because he didn't like people standing on him. A good fairy came flying down and said, 'What's wrong little pebble?'

When the fairy found out she pulled out her magic wand and gave the pebble a hard head so that it didn't hurt when people stepped on him. The pebble was so happy that everytime someone walked on the pebbles he sang a little song - "I'm so happy when people step on my hard, hard head. I'm so happy when they step. I'm so happy when people step on my hard, hard head. I'm so happy when they step on me!"

Did the boy take that step off the pavers and onto the pebbles? Yes! He did!

Ahhhhhhhh! Magic Happens!

I'm glad that once upon a time, a long time ago, I read 'Annie Stories' by Doris Brett.

Digital Storytelling for Families & Children

2006-08-06T11:24:00.000+10:00

I just got back from a great Sunday bike ride with my friend Bill around some of Brisbane's wonderful bikepaths and I don't know whether it was having coffee at the Venice Cafe or the wonderfully human conversation with the Dutton Park ferry driver about the new green bridge construction or even if it was just ironing my new 'I do digital stories' T-shirt in preparation for the BIFF Story Creation workshop down at Southbank but I thought, 'I really should put up a link or two about where people can find some more digital stories to look at.'

After all, If families do enjoy the workshop and go home with their own digital story on a CD they might be inspired to look for more.

Here are a couple of links.

For Queensland digital stories you really can't go past 'Queensland Stories'. It's a site created by the Qld State Library Service and contains digital stories created all over Queensland. If you want to see some young people's stories do a search for Chermside and there you will find some stories created by teenagers living in the Chermside/Wavell Heights area that I had the privlidge of helping.

Another fascinating site is the Shoebox Stories at the BBC Wales site. This is the school age stories link but there are adults stories there as well. I like Michael's story about his best friend.

Well there you go. I'll have to tell you how the workshop goes and maybe have some photos from it as well. Today the theme is 'Princes and Princesses' and next week it is 'Environment'. Should be lots of fun.

Let me know what you think about the Chermside stories and what your fav. Shoebox story is please. I love them but I love to know what other people think.

Regards
Daryll Bellingham

My Story Island Home

2006-05-19T13:43:00.000+10:00

I've had a wonderful week of telling stories to young children this week. I love seeing the way children respond to stories. At one kindergarten, I had spent about 10 minutes telling a story with full on sound effects and action and kids joining in and laughing and coming up with suggestions and, at the end, a young girl right down the front put her hand up and said, "Could you tell that story again please?" Isn't that perfect.

Today there was a moment that made all of the driving worth it. A young boy had to be helped to walk into the room by the Director because of a physical disability that required him to wear some supportive legware. She also helped him sit up and helped him dance in the 'Old Man and the Drum' story. He was having a great time and at the end of the show all of the kids came over to shake my hand. He did as well and said, "That was a great story about the sheep."

It was the version of 'Baa, Baa, Black Sheep' that I have been improvising and polishing over the last month or so. He said, "I'm going to tell it to my Dad." I thought 'Yes!' this is what this storytelling business is about.

It made the drive back to Brisbane along the freeway worthwhile.

Storytelling and the Law

2006-05-18T19:44:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I arrived home from my morning performances to find some pieces of paper sticking out from under my door. I had a fair idea what they might be and I was right. Annie had dropped in with some photocopies of articles about Storytelling and the Law. I had run into her the day before in Vulture Street in West End on my way to Phil the Barber for a haircut so I stopped for a coffee and a chat and she told me about the articles.

She certainly had me interested. The drift was that if legal people had a better idea of the narrative and the personal stories of their clients and defendants they they would be better able to make informed, compassionate and appropriate judgements. Sounded good to me and I was looking forward to a read.

Well I've got to admit Annie that, when I got to read them - 'Storytelling, Postmodernism and the Law', Hon Justice Peter Heerey, The Australian Law Journal, 74:681-691 and 'Literature and the judicial role - Why judges should read novels and mandatory sentencing should be rejected', Rodney Allen - I was a little disappointed. The articles beat around the legal and academic bushes quite a bit and didn't really seem to come to the point of exploring an increased role for, or relevance of, personal narratives to any meaningful extent. Even though they were worth reading I was left with the feeling that both authors were reluctant to go out on any legal limbs in case they raised the ire of colleagues or similar.

Now here is my request does anyone know of any more specific articles about the role of storytelling and narrative structure in law?

Injecting Power into Corporate Communication

2006-04-19T16:06:00.002+10:00

I've just been completing a web page update www.storytell.com.au/corpicte2006.html to add the details of the corporate storytelling workshop being hosted by the Institute of Continuing and TESOL Education (ICTE - UQ). I must admit that the title of the workshop embarasses me a little. It sounds almost like a military workshop. I couldn't help thinking about the power of storytelling.

Over Easter I heard many stories as my father-in-law, John Tunny, revisited the scenes of his upbringing and early married life in a number of small country towns in north west New South Wales. These were healing stories - good to hear - pleasing to the ear. They had such a positive energy.

As I was thinking about this the ABC news was playing on the radio. It came to me that the 'news' is impossible without stories. They speak of characters in settings of place and time. They detail problems and solutions. Mind you they are pretty brief and matter of fact stories, stripped of niceties and personal details. Still they have power. It's a power to communicate seriously and effeciently.

It's a different type of power to those of community stories mind you. When I think about the Charleville Generational Learning digital stories. These stories build social capital and personal power.

What's So Special About Digital Storytelling

2006-04-11T22:25:00.000+10:00

I remember hearing about Digital Storytelling some years back at a storytelling festival, probably in Sydney. I remember thinking at the time that I would get into it some time.

Well now I have and now I'm sold on it. It wasn't just going to the First Person Conference and meeting a swag of Digital Storytellers from around the world. It hasn't just been the wonderfully challenging and rewarding process of running some Digital Storytelling projects for a range of different people.

I think that there is something quite wonderfully empowering about Digital Storytelling. I'd like to identify all of the elements and get them down.

If anyone has any thoughts let me know please.

Regards
Daryll

Enchanted Forest Stories

2006-04-07T22:53:00.000+10:00

Wow. Just spent the better part of a day in a recording studio. No, I tell a lie, it was the music room at Ashgrove State Primary school with students from year 3H recording them telling the Enchanted Forest Stories for the new BCC playground in Dorrington Park.

It's brilliant project really. The brain child of CAO Mark Crocker, I got to work with the students to create a set of Enchanted Forest Stories - the ones we recorded today. Gavin Fenlon worked with them on playground design ideas and now the Brisbane City Council is hard at work building the playground but I won't tell how the recordings are going to be installed in the playground. You'll have to wait. Sorry.

I'm looking forward to sitting down in that playground and listening to them when it's all comppleted though.

Return from the Charleville Generational Learning Project

2006-03-30T08:18:00.000+10:00

Well I've returned from Charleville with a swag of digital stories almost ready for burning to DVD and some cherished memories of some very special culturally significant places in Bidjara country. The Charleville Generational Learning project was a joint program of Indigenous and Community Health agencies in Charleville.

Liam Galton at Mt Tabor Station recording arrival.

My part in it was to facilitate the creation of series of Digital Stories by the young people taking part with the support of their community Elders. The whole team drove out to Mt Tabor station two hours drive north east of Charleville on the western side of the Carnavon National Park. Mount Tabor Station is owned by the Bidjara Council and is managed as a working cattle station and to preserve the important cultural heritage sites on it and surrounding properties.

Reeghan interviewing Aunty Carol at Boonoroo Spring

Shaun recording vision Carnavon Rock Shelter

It was a real buzz to be with the young and old as they explored sites like Lost City, Goats Rock, Bulla Cliffs, Boonaroo Springs and the Carnavon Ochre Pots. One of my challenges however was to facilitate the creation of stories about these sites and this country with a group of country town youth whose principle interest was football. Still we managed. As everyone started to absorb some of the specialness of the sites they were given much to think about. Digital stories with their emphasis on oral storytelling and visual creativity seemed a perfect match.

We had Multimedia Lab support from the Qld State Library in the form of 5 Sony Vaio laptops and from West End Community House with 2 Mac laptops, scanner, cameras etc. The visits to the cultural sites gave participants wonderful material for both scripts and imagery. Each of the community elders was assigned a site and one or two young people for the project. At the sites the young people took photos and interviewed their elders. Once back to the Mt Tabor station house scripts were written and photos selected.

Creating scripts on the Qld State Library Vaios at Mt Tabor

One interesting Digital Story practice consideration was around two of the participants writing their scripts about a site, the Carnavon Ochre Pots, before they went there. Although initially a challenge, with a little support to imagine how they might experience the site from the perspective of their main passion in life - football, they did really well. In fact, the digital stories that present an experience through the metaphor of a personal interest or passion or often the best.

Our show and tell session on Friday evening at the CWAATICH (Charleville and Western Area Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporation for Health) centre was wonderful. Fed with marinated kangaroo kebabs and a great salad, my wonderful volunteer, Christabelle Baranay, and I wrestled with the vagaries of Microsoft MovieMaker, recalcitrant laptops, a different data projector and a hastily thrown together sound system to show the participants Digital Stories in an open air movie theatre under the western stars.
Perhaps the most dramatic moment for me was when one of the parents who had earlier been complaining about the possible content of one of the stories came up to give me a promised opinion. I held my breath and waited. "Well, I said I'd give you my opinion......... I think .......... they are wonderful. You've done a really good job."

Mind you the job is not finished yet. First get the finished movies approved and then publish the DVD's. Then get them up on the State Library Queensland Stories site if everyone agrees.

I'm really looking forward to getting back to Charleville again and doing another project with a focus on the Elders' stories. Hopefully we can get the funding because it would be good to extend the training component of the project. I believe Digital Storytelling has tremendous potential as a community cultural development tool.

Regards
Daryll

I've got those Sunday afternoon digital storytelling blues

2006-03-12T15:14:00.000+10:00

Yes it is Sunday afternoon and I am working. I'm getting ready for my great expedition to Charleville for the Generational Learning Digital Storytelling project. What pieces of digital equipment should I take? Do I have a card reader for the camera in my new mobile phone? Is there any coverage in Charleville anyway?

If you are noticing a slight edge to my voice you are probably right. I've got nothing to worry about really however. I am sure we will complete the project with a spirit of adventureness, cooperation and flexibility that will amaze even me.

I'm also writing scripts for a Digital Storytelling 'How to Do It' DVD which I am beginning to 'shoot' with SpeakOut on Tuesday morning. It's a really good follow up to the First Person conference and Master Class. It's getting my thoughts about DS well and truly in order. I'll let you know, Dear Blog, when it is complete and ready for distribution.

One good thing is that I will be able to put excerpts from both the Chermside and Logan Digital Storytelling projects into this DVD. It should be great.

Am I getting too digital Dear Blog? I hope not. Let me reassure you.

This week I've really enjoyed some performing and improvising. I have a brand new story based on a nursery ryhme thanks to the children at Centenary Christian Kindergarten at Jamboree Heights. I had been planning to tell one of my regular stories which starts with the nursery ryhme 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' but before I could start the song one of the kinders said, "Is it Baa Baa Black Sheep?" Being someone who holds the principles of improvising close to his heart and well and truly displayed on his performer's sleeve I said, "Yes!" and we created a brand new story about what happened when the little boy who lived down the lane dropped his bundle of black sheep's wool in the mud puddle. Ah, the joy of living dangerously, creatively at least.

The Enchanted Forest project at Ashgrove State Primary is going swimmingly as well. I've completed the stories - well final drafts - and the Year 3's practice sessions are going well. I wish I could take you along to the opening of the playground when the toadstools and stories and play equipment are all installed Dear Blog. Well maybe I can.

Regards
Daryll

Digital Storytelling Advances

2006-03-01T21:09:00.000+10:00

So much to write about. So little time. The 'First Person' International Digital Storytelling Conference in Melbourne was such a buzz. Good speakers, great networking, excellent master class. I've written my notes from the conference and put them on the QldDigitalStories@yahoogroups.com email list if you would like to read them. Many more members are welcome.

Thank you Arts Queensland for the Professional Development Grant to get the conference and be there. What a pleasure it is to live in such a civilised country that a State Government will support working artists in such a way. Congratulations.

Since I've got back to Brisbane my Digital Storytelling practice is buzzing.

We completely completed the 'Loving Logan - Adapting to a New City' project. Got together with most of the participants, projected all of the movies, thought about the differences between the beginning and the end and talked over food. It felt good.

We started the West End Community Digital Storytelling Project just last night. It's already brought new people into the storytelling group and should be a great project. Thank you Gambling Community Benefit Fund for the equipment.

Any one want to join in the West End project? Should be a buzz. Be quick though. Zip me an email or give me a ring before Tuesday 7th March, 2006.

Come the 16th, I'm off to Charleville to run a project there with the Generational Learning Project. Christabelle Barranay is volunteering. Thank you Christabelle.

Anyone got a spare Dataprojector they can lend out now and then in Brisbane? I managed one for last night but it was only a home projector.

Anyone know of some cheap insurance for work equipment?.

Regards
Daryll

Tough Trees

2006-01-15T11:39:00.000+10:00

Tough Trees
Originally uploaded by Austories.

Sometimes I wonder why some trees need such tough skins?

Rail Trail imagination

2006-01-13T22:08:00.000+10:00

Rail Trail imagination
Originally uploaded by Austories.

Well we did go for a couple of rides on the Murray to Mountains Rail Trail - what an inspired idea. Mind you I don't think mid summer is the best time to do it but still we did enjoy it. One day we rode down the old railway line from Bright past Porepunkah and were steaming along quite well on our rented bikes when we espied a vineyard with a cafe open sign strategically placed near the bike trail. Well it wasn't long before we turned around and headed back to said 'cafe' for some refreshment. It was a bit highly priced but we did enjoy a antipasta plate and a very nice cup of coffee and the view out across the grape vines and the valley and bike trail below.

Another day we drove to Everton Station and tackled the hill to Beechworth. They've done the old station up a treat. Notice the 'storybook train engine' bike preparation shed, the water tank just where a trains water tank should be and the conveniences following along in the 'goods carriage' behind. Nice architectural design.

And if you have to ride 16kms up a long hill to Beechworth in the middle of summer then the rail trail certainly provides steady grades the whole way, a fair amount of shade, the odd wallaby and bird life and the thought that here was a train line that Ned Kelly that great romantic rebel of the Australian bush once worked on.

The ride down the hill was pretty cool as well.

Bright Spots on Mt Buffalo

2006-01-12T15:50:00.000+10:00

Bright Spots on Mt Buffalo
Originally uploaded by Austories.

Well I think human beings in general and me in particular are born optimists. We went for a drive and bush walk on Mt Buffalo thinking cool Alpine vegetation beside running creeks and lots of shady spots to rest and have a good meal in.

I forgot about the bush fires of a few years back and the drought that has followed. Mt Buffalo looks pretty forlorn I'm afraid. It was hot,not much water to be seen and flies, lots and lots of sticky flies.

One image I wish I had been forthright enough to snap was a smart couple sitting at a picnic table by the dam with food on plates,
glasses of wine, expensive camera on tripod beside them and having
their fly swatting hands constantly brushing away until they retreated to their 4WD. Spoilt a good dream those flys.

Still there were lots of bright spots to be found like these daisies
and a stripedly camouflaged grassshopper with vestigial wings crawling
around amongst the ground cover.

A Riverina Regional Sport Training Session

2006-01-11T22:01:00.000+10:00

A Riverina Regional Sport Training Session
Originally uploaded by Austories.

Was lucky to be able to get this photo as participants in the Murray River Red Gum Tree Knocking Marathon are normally very secretive about their training sessions but this local Deniliquin expat had been up the tree so long she didn't notice me approach with the camera. Don't miss the marathon! By the way they are looking for sponsors so if anyone has a spare million dollars or so the local Tourist Bureau would be grateful - the Ute Muster is rumoured to be getting a little dusty.

Another strange paddock sight!

2006-01-11T21:29:00.000+10:00

Another strange paddock sight!
Originally uploaded by Austories.

Large square Straw Bird eggs I think. Maybe there was a strong southerly wind blowing on the day the birds were laying. This paddock was some distance up the highway from the farm with the round Straw Bird eggs. I guess they are developing some regional variation. I suppose next there will be Slow Straw Birds or even a Straw Bird Cycling Trail.

Strange sight near the highway in northern Victoria.

2006-01-11T21:22:00.000+10:00

Strange sight near the highway in northern Victoria.
Originally uploaded by Austories.

A paddock full of round Straw Bird eggs. Note the flimsy barb wire fence. You'd think any half intelligent straw bird would step straight over it!

Cool!

2006-01-11T20:52:00.000+10:00

Cool!
Originally uploaded by Austories.

Storyteller on holidays 2

2006-01-08T14:32:00.000+10:00

We've carried the old orange kayak around down here on the roof of Karen's Falcon but the water, although beautiful, is too shallow for its sensitive fibreglass bottom. We've now bought some li-los for a cool splash in some creeks like the Buffaloo River below.

Storyteller on holidays
Originally uploaded by Austories.

What does a storyteller do on holidays?

2006-01-08T12:50:00.000+10:00

I go bike riding (along the Murray to the Mountains Rail Trail - all hail the recently departed Rail Trails President - may his jovial soul rest in some suitable bicycle paradise), kayaking in our chuncky old 2 person fibreglass orange kayak ( it's time I bought a white water one), eating lots of stone fruit ( Karen really knows it's summer that way), go bushwalking, read books (The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - disappointing ending but very nice writing) and fret about how to get my blog working through the mobile phone.

Reading Rocks

2005-08-26T21:28:00.001+10:00

Well here's the 'Reading Rocks' movie I made for presenting at the Redlands Shire branch libraries. It went fairly well especially at the second show at Capalaba. The kids there joined in with the song well and enjoyed the joke of the books reading.

It was a big audience. A child care centre group and a kindergarten attended as well. One of the regular girls brought along a wonderfully decorated rock princess. It had braided hair with little pink hair clips, eyes, mouth a tutu like skirt made from a patty cake paper cup. I really enjoy it when parents and kids work together like that.

Dial up version - 804 kbytes QT movie

Better quality sound - 3.1MB QT movie

Children's Book Week is upon us!

2005-08-21T23:03:00.000+10:00

Yes that's right. Another year! Another Children's Book Week! Another Children's Book Week Theme! This year it's 'Reading Rocks'. Well of course it does!

Trust me though I immediately thought of rocks. You know those hard stoney things you trip over and crack your big toe on when you're running down a bush track.

I had a great couple of days and nights up at Stanthorpe Library running some workshops for writers young and old and doing some performances. I asked the motel manager if I could borrow one of his rocks for a stage prop. He gave me a strange look but he did help me lift it out of the garden and into the boot of the car. It looked quite good on stage in the Stanthorpe Civic Centre Supper Room with my beanie on it's head and my scarf around his kneck.

I've made a movie called Reading Rocks for the Cleveland and Capalaba Library shows and I promise to upload it when I get a spare few minutes.

Enjoy Book Week 2005,
Daryll