Is Older Better?

Raven, artwork by Simon Brooks
 © 2016

I'm not talking about me here! I'm talking stories!
There is much stress is made on the Greek Myths in education.  I suppose there is very good cause for this.  Many of the places in these tales are real places and can be traced and taught. But there are so many other cultures whose myths and stories we should be exploring and sharing.  After my own cultural mythology of the Norse Gods, I discovered the Native American stories. They really spoke to me on a deep, deep level.  And I have found the same with Chinese and Indian (Asia) tales.  Much of this I want to explore and research more.

The Old Tales were for grown ups, not children. Let's face it, Grimm's stories contain infanticide, murder, theft, cannibalism, and yet more murder, as do many folktales from other cultures.  Look at the Baba Yaga stories, and some of Australia's traditional stories. In Australia there are tales where babies are eaten, of people setting fire to each other and the animals killing each other in horrific ways.  Many European stories have been watered down over the years, more recently and heavy-handedly in the last 40 years.

I think the stories from former Eastern Block countries were able to keep their strength and power, as they were less touched, as it were, by the French Romanticism and the Victorian era idea of cleaning everything up prim and proper! Some of these are not tales to tell or read to children, at bedtime or other times! But they are great for adults. It irks me a little that the Norse and Germanic pantheon of myths are often overlooked.  Huge units are taught on the Greek Myths, why not the Norse Myths and Sagas? Why not the Indian and Buddhist, Hindu tales too?  I have nothing against the Greek myths, although if children were taught the full story of Zeus and his philandering, the tricks he played in spite, and fear of wrath from his wife Hera, they may have a little less respect for these gods. And Hera always took out her revenge on the innocent, who Zeus had already mistreated!  The Norse gods always held themselves accountable, they seem like real people - "oops, messed up there!"  Very human.


I love the older versions of the Old Stories and take great pleasure from sharing them.  They are so strong. The messages strike harder and deeper.  I love telling these stories.  With all the personal stories being told and being listened to on The Moth and the like, there seem to be few kindred spirits in telling folk tales for adults.  I think if people took the time to sit and listen to the Old Stories we would find a medium in storytelling that is more intimate than theatre, more powerful than the movies and just as healing at times as a much needed call to your parents, trip to the therapist, or a snuggle with your Gran!  As Cassandra Cushing put it in the Bay Express on-line: "...part of the appeal of these stories is how they provide more concrete and straightforward ways for thinking about life's complications."

If you want to explore some of these tales, check out my beginners list of books on folk and fairy tales, myths and legends by clicking here: http://www.diamondscree.com/Booklist.htm
Enjoy!
Simon

Happy New Year - here's to a year of being present

It seems I have not been terribly good about updating my blog! Nor my website. This is not an oversight, but I have been busy. Life is very full, and this is good. And sometimes I am not 100% present because of that. When I take photographs I am present, 100%. (See some shots I took over the holidays here: http://simonbrooksstoryteller.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/swansea-marina-and-locale/)

One of the things I stress when telling tales, is that one of the best ways to be 100% present with your own kids is to tell them stories. They do not have to be folk tales, fairy stories, myths or legends, they can be stories about yourself, about Mum, Gran, Grandpa, Auntie Joan, your best friend, Gary Veale, who was really good at getting you into trouble! But what I am really saying is 'Turn off your blooming device and be present with your children.'

When I was a full time stay-at-home dad, which to some degree I still am, I found that when the kids were agitated and I became agitated, was when I was not present with them. I would be trying to work and would get frustrated, but if I stopped and spent time with them, gave them all my attention, forgot about what was needed to be done in the other room, things would get better. I could ask to go and do some work. It was like time sharing! We would do things together for a while and I am 100% there, then I have to go and work and be 100% there in my office!

Sitting down and telling tales is a great way to be present. You cannot help but be present. It is one-on-one time. Don't answer the phone, don't look to see who sent you a text, BE with the kids. If you think you can't tell tales (but you can!), then draw with them, play Lego's with them, write stories together, build something out of cardboard boxes, cook together. Walks can present opportunities for story, especially woods, streams, rocky places where things can hide and live extraordinary lives. There are spirits in the rocks, fairies in the streams, goblins in the trees throwing nuts at you!

Dad and me on the Gower

One thing I like to do is draw. Sometimes we still fold a piece of paper and each of us draws part of a body from top to bottom. When you unfold the paper you have a creature of some sort, or a weird looking person! Sometimes it is fun to make up a story about the creation you have just made. Make two and then both can have adventures. Make a third who the first two might meet. What do they do, where do they go? Suddenly stories appear from play. Then maybe at bedtime, you can expand on the story a little and leave a cliff-hanger for the next day or evening. Make up stories about strange (to the kids) words: make up what they don't mean with an outlandish tale!

It's not just kids though, it is your partner too. Be present. Give time, 100% focus to each other. The same with other family members near and distant. Maybe something wonderful will come out of it.

Happy New Year!

Recording (Family) Stories

If you have young children, read on.  If you have grandchildren, read on. If you have elders in your family, read on.

We all come from different cultures and each and everyone of us has different life experiences. These experiences, and our heritage, I believe, make us who we are.  These experiences can be told in stories, and the stories from our own culture and heritage can be, and should be told. As our planet, Earth, gets smaller and as we travel further a field to live the life we want to, we sometimes find ourselves leaving family behind and the stories they have within them.

Photo by Simon Brooks, 2014
Showing: Disney's Babes in Toyland LP, a compact disc, an Agfa cassette tape,
the Olympus WS-300M, the Zoom Q3 and Roland's Edirol R-09HR

I was not able to record many stories from my Gran before she died, just a little bit here and there, although I knew a great deal about my Grandad - he also came to America and Canada.  My grandparents on my father's side, sadly passed away before I could get any family stories from them, and it wasn't until after their death I found that I had Irish in me. My Mum, however, shared some great stories of her life growing up, when I last saw Gran, two years ago.  I found out about her jaunts to the jazz clubs of Birmingham and her wild and crazy friend. Her sneaking off to date with boys! I got some of these stories on tape. (To be used later...!)

As a kid, my brother and I recorded on my step-father's Grundig reel to reel machine, and occasionally on the Dictaphones my dad sold from his office supply store in South Wales (before Office Max was invented).  I wonder where those tapes are now, and if they still have a couple of little boys pretending to be police officers or spies on them! I later used that same Grundig to record my rock and band. I moved 'up' to a cassette machine, a Walkman and then an Olympus voice recorder. I have always loved recording sounds, stories, other people!

As Gran grew sick I realized how much I did NOT know about her.  She came from Canada originally, told me we were someway related to Cecil Rhodes, but I can't see how! She lost her brother, James, at a fairly young age. Gran and my Aunt (great aunt really) Andree sold their burial plots because they were worth some money and planned on being cremated! Our family has been Quakers and Christian Scientists. I tried to get over to the UK and record some of her stories but she was reluctant to talk into the recorder.  I wish I had done more many, many years ago.

These days, it is easy to record at very high quality for not too much money. With the ease of getting digital recorders we do not need tapes anymore, we only need free computer space, and we can get more of that with memory sticks, or external drives! For the cost of taking the family out for a meal or two at a restaurant, you can get voice recorders which record nicely. My grandfather was recorded on cassette, but there is a lot of hiss on it, as it was from one of those Jones cassette machines you see libraries giving away!

Now to bring this into a full circle!  I whole-heartedly suggest that you invest in a good voice recorder. Go to a store, take a good pair of headphones and try a few out. Why? The headphones will allow you to hear the sound quality, which you might not otherwise hear in the store.  Buy one and record stories for your children and grandchildren. If you have elders in your family, ask them to share some of their memories with you. Record your own stories! When your kids grow up, and have their own children, they might want to hear stories you might forget! When people pass away, so do their stories, their life experiences and the stories they knew and loved. If your elders are young enough, then they can record those stories and send them to you. Keep them.  Even though young kids might not appreciate the stories now, when they get older and get interested, you will have them.  If your family moved from another country be it England or Ireland, Egypt or South Africa, India or Serbia you might have family still there, embedded in your heritage.  Have them share those stories with your children, or share with other people's children within your community. You might have a rich source of stories that others do not.  Share this source, your heritage, your stories.

Books are great, they can contain so much information, but voices of your own family or of those close to you contain so much more - their own lives and experiences.

(I am doing a workshop on recording stories using voice recorders, computers, microphones and Digital Audio Workstations - DAWs - at Sharing the Fire, the North Eastern Storytelling Conference on Friday, 28th March at UMASS, Amhurst MA. For more details visit the website of the League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling: http://lanes.org/storytelling-conference/friday-pre-conference-intensives/)

Untold stories - Elephants, Native Americans and my Grandad

This is my grandfather, Samuel Horrocks Williams in the 1920's.  He took to farming in Canada instead of following the family mill business in Manchester, England.  My great grandfather told him he has to start, like everyone else, at the bottom sweeping the floor. Grandad had schooling and did not want to start at the bottom so took off for fields a new and became a farmer in Ontario, Canada.

My grandmother, his second wife (his first wife Mollie died of T.B.) had most of his photograph albums and some other things of his that were not tossed out or passed on to other members of the family.  Last year, Gran died.  Almost a year after my mum was able to ship over some of Grandad and Gran's things, reminders of them that have no real value, other than sentimental and keepsake memories.  But Mum threw in a photo album from which the photo above is from.  The album has opened a few questions in the family which cannot be answered, but one of my favorites is this photograph.

Grandad is, I think, the one with what looks like a tan shirt and silly hat on!  This photo, as with all the photos in the album, are from Ontario, Canada.  Look at the houses in the background.  And here he is, presumably in one of the farm's fields with a small herd of elephants and a Native American.  And we are left with this great question: What on Earth is going on here?  The only thing we have come to is that the elephants and maybe some of the people in the photo are from a traveling circus.  The elephants, I presume, have been let off the trailers, be they pulled, or from a railway locomotive, to eat and stretch.  But I wish I knew the story of this image.

Grandad died in the 1980's and I had never seen this photograph album.  Most of the photos taken pre-Gran were not let out or looked at. And Gran has gone so I cannot ask her.  My one surviving aunt from my grandfather's marriage to Molli also has no idea, as most of the photos in the album are from Grandad's first trip which he made before coming back to get Mollie.

I love the photo and the mystery it has created.  Grandad loved animals and the letters of recommendation we have from this time period state this categorically.  And I love the fact that Grandad could ride a horse sans saddle.

Peace,
Simon