Ah!
Technology – much maligned – accused of distancing people from
one another – depersonalising – impersonalising – and yet, last
night, it brought us all together, safely.
No
drives in the dark. No two metre rule.
Nicole
had suggested Family Lore -
and then couldn’t be there, because of the handing-over of
house-keys! But a lot of us
were: Dan, with Jess, and Ian and Maddie and Raph, without a camera,
so we have no idea what he was getting up to, and Jill [without a
microphone to start with] and Mike, and, as listeners, Karen, and
very briefly Renée, who seemed a little bemused, as though she was
in the wrong meeting, and left quite rapidly.
We
started early, to make sure we all knew what was going on, and to let
people dribble in, and the telling began at 7.30 with “family
reminiscences”. Ian told us Tales of the Anderson Shelter [two],
Maddie told us two tales of Portsmouth Harbour, one sad and shocking,
one basically funny, with
flour-bombs, Mike told us about his father and grandfather on
bicycles, exploiting licensing-hour differentials in the snowy
Pennines. Then we all went out to clap for the NHS at 8pm and came
back in to hear Raph telling a Chinese Cinderella [at his father’s
request].
It
was a rich evening: in no particular order we heard Ian tell Cap o’
Rushes [as an English Cinderella]; Dan tell The Cruel Mother [pieced
together from 19 Child ballads]; Jill told The Caravan Holiday with
Gladioli, and, by special request, The Teeth; Raph told The Last Log,
from Norfolk [for reasons of relief, it must have been from Cromer,
even if Raph reckoned it was
to do with dwergar, the spirits brought over from Scandinavia by the
Danes who settled there]; to
link with Norfolk, Maddie told a family reminiscence, The Cycling
Holiday; Mike told us a
little more about his father’s shiftless side, and also The Tale of
God, the Devil and the Nettle; Raph, to back up the Scandinavian
element, sang The Ikea Song; and Maddie closed the evening with
Lemminkäinen’s visit to Tuonela, and the timely message that
Mother Knows Best.
Next
Thursday, April 2nd,
will be the first Zoom meeting of Southampton Story Club. No driving
needed! Room open at 7, telling starts at 7.30, why not come along?
Click
on the link, and Robert est ton oncle!
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