What are you doing for National Storytelling Week?

This week will mark National Storytelling Week. It’s the twelfth such annual event run by the Society for Storytelling which has Lottery Funding via Arts Council England.

And it’s storytelling, note, not story reading which will be happening at events in schools, libraries, theatres, cafés and other public spaces all week.  There are festivals and celebrations every day until and including 4 February. The impressive list of events is on the Society for Storytelling’s website.

Storytelling is theatre in miniature. It requires eye contact, gesture and imaginative use of the voice. But it’s very portable and needs no props – although some professional storytellers use a few basic ones such as hats.

You can do it anywhere. For example, a few years ago when my two children were quite young, we were in a family-style restaurant, tired and hungry at the end of a long day’s drive through central France.  Seated at the end of one of the place’s three refectory table our kids were getting restive as they waited for their food. We had no books or resources so, as I often did, I started to tell them a story – on this occasion my potted version of ‘The Elephant’s Child’. After a few minutes and much tacking  across and beside ‘the great, grey, green, greasy Limpopo River’ I became aware that the crowded noisy restaurant was gradually getting quieter. Then there was silence except for me and my story. Every child and every adult – all French except us – was listening. It was an extraordinary moment which taught me a great deal about the power of storytelling and about Kipling’s immortal rhythms which can so effortlessly transcend the barriers of language.

Every child, and indeed every adult, needs oral stories. Why else do people tell each other jokes and anecdotes so compulsively? And stand-up comedy is really only a version of storytelling.

Have you ever heard Gervase Phinn telling stories? He was a Yorkshire school inspector – yes, that’s right a school inspector – which is hardly a role you’d expect to engender jolly stories and storytelling. But in Phinn’s hands, voice and words the stories are riveting, affectionate and funny. He wrote a series of books (The Other Side of the Dale, The Heart of the Dales and others) about his experiences and tells the stories in theatres and on cruises. His two-month 2012 national tour starts on 03 May and will take him to dozens of places including Brighton, Monmouth, Chesterfield and Solilhull.

Good teachers tell stories to enliven their lessons and illustrate the points they are trying to teach. And, typically it’s the story the pupil will remember long after the serious point is forgotten. When I was a careless, untidy teenager I once left my school hat upturned on the kitchen floor where the cat piddled in it – not an easy thing to explain to the draconian teachers at school the next day. Years later I told that little story to one of my classes. I suppose it was relevant to something at the time. When, recently, I ran into a former pupil, now grown up with children of her own, she teased me about my school hat. I hope she can also recall some of the other useful things I taught her but I’m not holding my breath.

Parents, grandparents and great grandparents tell stories too and  children love to hear family tales from long ago or the naughty things that their parents did to annoy their own parents. Or it can be something life changing and important such as my own grandfather’s being shot in the foot by a sniper on the Somme in 1916 and brought home injured. Had he stayed there much longer I doubt I’d be here now writing this.

‘In the beginning was the word, so we are told, and the man who gathered the words spoke and lifted life through parable, fable, saga, tale and story – each an experience, one way or another.’ Society for Storytelling reminds us.

Storytelling can be found enriching lives everywhere: from nurseries to schools, from bereavement aids in hospitals to strengthening communication in the business sphere, from reminiscence centres to support groups for those with special needs, and in theatrical performances. The sharing between teller and listener empowers, feeding the imagination from one generation to the next.

Happy storytelling this week.

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