The Taddington Tales
It has taken a while but we’ve just posted the wild and wonderful film that arose out of work with Taddington Primary School
Make some popcorn, sit back with a long cold drink and drop into YouTube for a viewing!
Footsteps in time
exploring the history of Dovedale through drama, photography and fun!
When: Wednesday 27th April 2011 , 11am – 4pm
Where? Dovedale, upstream from the Stepping Stones in the Dovedale Valley. Ordnance Survey grid reference 119:SK151514
How much? activities are FREE, car parking charges apply
How long? activities take 30 minutes – 1 hour. Drop-in during the day: no need to book
What is happening? using old pictures to look at how have people used Dove Dale over the centuries? Visitors will be able to with costume and compose their own historical photos, send postcards through time, make up stories, reconstruct ancient coral reef scenes from when Dove Dale’s limestone was being formed
after workshops in school back in October, Taddington priumary School came, en masse, to Buxton Museum and Art Gallery in February for a day of activity and performance.
Here, for the first time, we saw the animations children had created editted into a film and shown on a big screen.
Here, we met the glamorously clad inhabitants of period Buxton.
Here, we encountered the animals of modern Taddington that share the dales with us humans.
Here, we saw the history of the dales unfold in a timeline reaching from ancent seas and trilobites right up to the present day and rivers wearing the limestone away and carryng it back to the sea again…..
First photos are posted here…more will follow…and
an article from the Buxton Advertiser
Lively words for the coming of spring
Every month we have been trying to psot a piece of writing from earlier visitors to the peaks, inviting 21st century readers to taste earlier experiences of these craggy hills and deep dales. Our latest challenge offers two pieces – that hopefully catch something fo the promise of spring…
Have a read, and send us what you think about these words, thoughts and images: you don’t need to write a poem! A sentence will do, or a paragraph or scrawl a postcard on-line….and I know the image isn’t of anemones! but this is from a spring morning in the dales just last week
from “The Tables Turned, an evening on the same subject”
UP! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you’ll grow double:
UP! up! my Friend, and clear thy looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?
The sun above the mountain’s head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.
Books! ‘tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music on my life
There’s more of wisdom in it
William Wordsworth 1798
from “The Botanic Garden”
All wan and shivering in the leafless glade
The sad ANEMONE reclined her head;
Grief on her cheeks had paled the roseate hue,
And her sweet eyelids dropp’d with pearly dew.
“See, from bright regions, borne on odorous gales
The Swallow, herald of summer sails
Erasmus Darwin 1791
Catch the article about the Nothing but Footsteps project in the latest edition (Spring 2011) of Pure Buxton!
www.purebuxton.co.uk
Pop-up Theatres: miniature marvels: thrills, chills and daredevil adventures!
Thursday 24th February 2011
using old prints of the Peak District join artists from the Footsteps make your own Victorian–style pop-up theatre complete with scenery, heroes, villains, animals and monsters!
tell adventures from the hills and dales that no-one has ever heard before!
Ages: suitable for anyone from 8 years of age. Younger children are welcome but must bring an adult to help them
2 sessions
Sessions are free but space isl limited and places must be booked. Call the Museum on 01298 24658
Session 1:10am – 12 pm:
Session 2: 1pm – 3pm
Buxton Museum and Art Gallery, Terrace Rd, Buxton, SK17 6DA
For our next poetry challenge (see “Grab your words and fight back” from back in November), we’ve picked up on one of the peak’s most abiding recreational pursuits, offering you two different perspectives on the noble art of fishing……
The aim of these “challenges” is to give you something to think about and invite you to send in your responses: as poems, as prose, as pictures….as a few words scribbled over a cup oft ea or a considered composition that kept you up half the night…..And “responses”? You may agree with the poems presented – or disagree – or think it’s all rubbish and we should just build motorways – or be deeply indifferent to the appeal of thigh-length waders and lots of cold water.
1. Enjoy thy streame, O harmless fish;
And when an angler, for his dish,
Through a gluttony’s vile sin,
Attempts, a wretch, to pull thee out,
God give thee strength, O gentel trout,
To pull the raskall in!
John Wolcot, 1801
2. Oh my beloved nymph! Fair Dove;
Princess of rivers, how I love
Upon thy flowery banks to lie;
And view thy silver stream,
When gilded by a summer’s beam,
And in it all thy wanton fry
Playing at liberty,
And with my angle upon them
The all of treachery
I ever learnt, industriously to try.
Charles Cotton, 1630-1687
Back in September, i was working up in Inverness telling stories and leading storymaking workshops in schools across the region. I spent one session with some old friends at the Glachbeg Croft Centre in North Kessock where we talked about the Footsteps project. The group were taken with the idea of people visiting places and valuing places very much as we do today over the centuries. Out of that discussion came two collective pieces of work that, while they aren’t about the peaks, are about that sense of valuing place and that adventures come from how people see and respond to a place and to each other rather than anything hugely shocking taking place. ”The Expedition” and “Glachbeg” follow. there is an image sequence to go with Glachbeg that will go onto our YouTube site just as soon as I work out how to do it!
The Expedition
Out on the waves, looking for dolphins,
Out on the waves, in a bumpy boat,
Out on the waves, racing along,
Out on the waves, hanging on tight,
Out on the waves.
Giggling girls holding on for dear life,
Navy blue lifejackets, blue and black wetsuits,
Hoping for giraffes, for crocodiles, for penguins, for sharks.
Out on the waves, under the water,
Dolphins and seals are gliding.
Out on the waves, over the water,
Seagulls, herons, cormorants and shags are sailing
Out on the waves where the guillemots spit
Out on the waves where we see no whales,
No seals, no dolphins, no nothing but waves
Back from the waves, back from the water, back to Glachbeg
Singing all the way, back to home and back to bed!
The Wednesday in-It Together Club, Glachbeg Croft Centre, 15th September 2010
ENJOYING GLACHBEG
The day the diggers came,
moving mountains of earth,
Glachbeg grew out of mud and wood
and a sunset glowed over the hills
Cleaning out chickens
Collecting eggs
Feeding excited cows
Hoping for horses but not here, not yet,
And in the autumn, the cows will steal the apples
Lambs in the field, jumping around, both lambs and us
Escaping to Spain
Summer holidays and heat
Relaxing in the sand with jacuzzis under the stars
Under the sun
A hot sun
A bright sun
A roasting sun, while palm trees wait by a clear blue sea
But Glachbeg brings us back to black sheep and brown sheep and
Lambs still running across the fields
And here is our room
And time with friends
The band is playing – drums, guitar and a strong voice
Joining in, singing, dancing, or watching
The Wednesday In It Together club is best!
Cleaning out chickens
Collecting eggs
Feeding excited cows
Hoping for horses but not here, not yet,
And in the autumn, the cows will steal the apples
The Wednesday In-It-Together Club,
Glachbeg Croft Centre, 15th September 2010
search for the locations of 18th and 19th Century prints in the Derbyshire dales this winter
Three images follow….did picture 1 become picture 2 and with picture 3 have the Keirl family pinned the scene down?
exciting information to follow!