margaretkendall community writing, intergenerational, memories

Back to school

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It wasn’t difficult to turn back the clock to our schooldays!  

We started by sharing a word or two each about our memories and/or the emotions they stirred. This resulted in a list which illustrates the variety of our responses, both positive and negative: unpredictability, learning, discovery, stickers, administration, teachers in my family, nightmare, corporal punishment, humiliation, envy, inequality, lost friends, solidarity, structure, judgement, uniforms, crowded trains and buses, a particular teacher, a flood of memories.

 Joe Sykes then guided us skilfully in a time of individual reflection, using the prompts:

  • What experiences at school have shaped you?
  • What educational experiences did you have outside of school? (e.g. school trips, residentials etc.)
  • What happened at break time and lunch time?  (e.g. sports, arts, music, drama, involvement with the local community)

He followed this by sharing his own story, illustrated by an amazing collection of photographs, scrapbooks and memorabilia from both his primary and secondary education.  How wonderful to take part in the school production of the musical, Grease!

Image: The programme for Grease. The text reads By arrangement with Samuel French Ltd, Colne Valley High School presents Grease, March 13th, 14th and 15th 2001. Book, music and lyrics by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. There is a black line drawing of a rear view of the heads of a couple in a car, with the letter G of Grease forming the swirling hairstyle of the young man.

Then the room filled with noise as we discussed our responses in small groups. There was such a lot to say, no matter when we’d left school.  It was fascinating to get back together at the end and hear more about one another’s experiences.  Some of us tell our stories in the blog post which follows.  We hope they’ll prompt memories of your own.

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jolenesheehan community writing

Beginnings and Endings

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Our September session was beautifully led by Karen Whittick, who shared a heartfelt piece of writing to guide us in. Her words got us thinking both philosophically and personally, and set the tone for a session that felt both reflective and connecting.

We began by exploring the act of saying hello and goodbye. We talked about how in some languages the same word is used for both greeting and parting, for example aloha in Hawaiian or salut in French. In Islam the phrase as-salaamu alaykum means “peace be upon you,” with the response wa alaykum as-salaam meaning “and peace be upon you too.” This struck us as a beautiful way of not only wishing peace in both directions, but also of recognising the cyclical nature of life

From there our conversation moved into the different ways hellos and goodbyes show up in our lives. We spoke about the safety created by acknowledging someone on a hike (they might remember you afterwards if you go missing!) while others are told that its not safe to say hello. For children especially it can be confusing to be told to beware of strangers and also to be polite. We also thought about the everyday moments when a hello opens the door to respect, conversation and connection.

Our reflections then widened out into life changes ; moving home, changing jobs, the end of relationships, and the opening of new chapters. We noticed how every goodbye can carry the possibility of a hello, if we are open to it, and wondered whether that life lesson get easier with practice. How sometimes we can feel a bit stuck, while others we might flourish because we have learned to take something from the goodbye and carry it into the next chapter.

Philosophical threads ran through the whole session. We thought about the infinity symbol and how beginnings and endings are never really separate, how in Buddhism everything is interconnected and always in flux, and how nothing is ever static. At any moment there can be fullness or absence, and it is always shifting.

We touched on the whole spectrum of emotions that beginnings and endings can bring – joy, sadness, excitement, loss. Ceremonies, seasons and phases all hold that mixture. Airports and train stations came up as places where hellos and goodbyes are especially present and felt.

It was a session full of richness. There was a zooming out to the big philosophical picture and then zooming in to the specifics of our own lives.

Read on to see what our participants wrote and shared in response…

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jolenesheehan community writing

Groups – what they give, what they take, and what we make of them

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Photo by Rachel Claire on Pexels.com

In our last Stories of Our Lives session, we turned our attention to the idea of groups – the ones we’re part of, the ones we’ve left, and the ones that have shaped us along the way. The conversation was a little shorter than usual because it was also our annual feedback session, but it was still a really rich and thoughtful exchange.

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margaretkendall community writing

Moments of Joy

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Moments of joy were easy to recall as we went round the room: an unexpected smile from a passer-by, a memory of climbing a mountain, comfort from stroking your cat, settling down with a good novel, a warming cup of tea, the sound of a cheering football crowd, signs of Spring in the park, cuddling a toddler finally succumbing to sleep… It was a topic some had previously discussed (see Small Joys, November 2022 ) and a joy to share some pieces written then with more recent members of the group. 

In a follow-on meeting, Chris Hogben led a relaxed and enjoyable sewing workshop, helping us to capture our thoughts about small joys as we chatted, stitched and unwound.   In the blog post which follows, some of us share the results in images, others have also written reflections.  Enjoy!

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