Oxygen

In June 1913 fifteen women set out from Lands End to walk to Hyde park in support of the suffrage movement and to campaign and raise awareness of child poverty, the white slave trade and to put an end to sweated labour. That was one hundred years ago this year and to celebrate the centenary a new company, Dreadnought South West, are touring a new play Oxygen by Natalie McGrath which will follow the original route and play at theatres along the way.

Playing many different spaces Oxygen will, quite literally, take you on a journey and make you think about what those fifteen women, who became thousands by the time they reached London, did for us and what that means for women today.

In 2008 Natalie saw an old sepia photograph of women and children holding a banner saying ”National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies – Land’s End to London’. She wanted to know more and as she researched she realised this was a bit of history that hadn’t been fully documented, so she decided to give them a voice.

It seems fitting that these women will be honoured a hundred years on and that families of the original fifteen will be able to watch the performance that their female relations inspired. On the image above it shows all the stopping points and I urge all you people reading this, not only in Cornwall but along the route, to save the date of your local showing.

cabin envy – middle of nowhere

all these cabins seem to be dwarfed by nature. The first one abandoned and the last two, (apparently, they are fishing shacks) look pretty inaccessible. All come courtesy of http://cabinporn.com/

bank holiday

what a surprise – to have a warm, sunny, dry bank holiday. It’s normally the case that the days running up to the break are lovely and then the change happens as everyone has time off. Now we are back at work it seems there’s going to be a weather change coming. So, I thought I’d record the weekend as a reminder of the sunny days.

coming across the river from Devon to Cornwall on the Torpoint ferry always gives it a holiday vibe, especially when it’s high tide and the boats are bobbing on the water.

the term ‘concrete beaches’ seems like an oxymoron but that’s what they call them.

On Saturday I was down at Penquite and the views were stunning

a few days of sun seems to have spurted new ‘intense’ growth on all the cliff and hedgerow plants making them appear to be greener than green and yellower than yellow

and of course the sun always seems to make the sea the most wonderful shade of blue-green.

cabin envy 18

photo by Andreas Mikkel Hansen

these photos come from bobedre.dk via  Scandinavian Retreat

I’m loving the outdoor bath with overhead shower, I just wish our weather was warm enough for such a luxury. For a more rustic approach

RNLI lifeguards

Happy May Day.

As the celebrations for May Day get underway in the South West it will be good to know that the RNLI lifeguards will be back patrolling the Whitsand Bay beaches over the May  bank holiday weekend. Last year was by all accounts a year of extreme weather and lifeboats were launched 8,321 times around the UK coast, rescuing an average of 22 people a day. The Flood Rescue team was deployed 12 times in the UK, 6 in the South West.

The lifeguard look out at Sharrow Point, Whitsand Bay

Lifeguards responded to 14,519 calls last year, helping 16,414 people in distress or out of their depth on British beaches.

Donations go to help those calls to be answered, so the next time you see a Collection lifeboat somewhere and you stick some loose change in – that’s what you are supporting. On the Rame Peninsula there are 34 collection boxes, the top collector last year being Harvey’s butchers, closely followed by the Devonport Inn at Kingsand. On the other hand you may see volunteers in their S.O.S place – Standing outside Sainsburys in Torpoint.     If you do ever see a volunteer, SOS or not – just remember that a bit of loose change can actually go to help saving lives.

Whitsand Bay lifeguards patrolling by boat

Coffee with Vera

This post is not specifically about the chalet, the beach, or the cliff in general but it tells you what I’ve been preoccupied with for the last few months. Some of you will know that I’ve taken myself off to university again – again! I never went in the first place. I got my degree in theatre arts from a drama school and the course was very much geared up to the practicalities of theatre and not the theory. Now I’ve gone back I have the experience of over 20 years making theatre but not the experience of the academic analysis. I’ve been battling away since October 2012 with literary reviews and extended essays and project proposals, but, although I wont pass with flying colours if my writing has anything to do with it, I have finished my research module. My main preoccupation is now to make a performance. I knew what I wanted to engage with when I went back last October, it had to be research into performance in non theatre spaces and I specifically wanted to look at the synagogue in Plymouth. The Plymouth Synagogue is the oldest Ashkenazi Synagogue in continuous use in the English speaking world. Just re read that sentence again because it takes a while for it to compute. Yes that’s right, the oldest; dating from 1762, in fact, last year it celebrated it’s 250th anniversary. It’s such a hidden history for Plymouth that I wanted to do a piece about it. Whilst researching we went to stay with good friends in Nottingham and met a theatre director whose ancester is buried in the old Jewish cemetery on the Plymouth Hoe. He also told me that the executive director of the Jewish Museum in London was Abigail Morris, a theatre director who I had worked with 20 years ago. I went up and met her and had a fantastic morning with her in the museum and talked about our work 20 years ago. That was the first production of Kindertransport by Diane Samuels for the Soho theatre and it has gone on to be a world wide success, of course it isn’t a coincidence that the play has a Jewish theme.

I’ve been interviewing some of the congregation and reading their newsletters in the Plymouth records office and generally trying to get a feel for what I might focus the performance on.  I have decided to create a coffee morning based on the Ladies Guild, that had its hay day in the 1960s and 70s. The interviewees will remain anonymous but their words have been used for my script. I decided on this method of gathering material as I can’t claim to be a playwright in any way. There will be more than one strand of the story and I will weave our fascination with heritage and ancestry through the performance including my own possible Jewish roots!!! I have created the role of Vera Jockleson as the chair of the Ladies Guild who is an imaginary character within the piece but I reveal who she really is at the end.

Coffee with Vera in the Vestry is a cultural conversation. I will share some anecdotes, introduce some characters, show some things and give some insight into the building. It will be performed in the vestry of the Plymouth Synagogue on May 22nd @ 3pm and 7pm and May 26th @ 12 noon. I will also be performing it on June 30th at the Jewish Museum in London.

Coffee with Vera is part of Plymouth University’s Humanities and Performing Arts Showcase within the Plymouth History Festival, May 2013.

cabin envy 17

These pics are from http://www.kmldesign.dk/ 

This lovely boathouse above is spawned from this bigger parent below.