Scottish Arts Council - Archive - East Renfrewshire 07

Last year just under 8000 people attended events during the three week East Renfrewshire Storytelling Festival. This year, the festival will run from 6 February to 4 March with events in schools, nurseries, libraries and other less predictable venues!

The festival will also feature storytellers from all over Scotland and as far afield as the United States, who will perform in schools and libraries throughout East Renfrewshire.

Amy on the train; Photo: Jim Buchan, East Renfrewshire Council

The Tails on Rails event launched the festival, with Blantyre based storyteller Gerry Durkin boarding the East Kilbride to Glasgow commuter train at Busby to entertain shoppers and commuters.

This year the festival will be holding some events in the newly refurbished Eastwood Park Theatre, including one of the highlights of this year's festival on the closing day, Sunday 4 March - 'Green Whale', a story of the sea, pirates and romance, deep-sea adventure, storms, sails and ropes. Don't miss this brand new show from Scottish children's touring theatre company, Licketyspit.

A new development this year has been the work done in schools by Wendy Woolfson, a professional storyteller. Wendy has provided a programme of staff training tailored to each school. Storytelling is being linked to class topics and supports the delivery of language work. In this way storytelling supports and enhances the curriculum. Wendy has also being doing reminiscence work with some retired ladies from the Barrhead Sheltered Housing Complex gathering their stories. These stories will be collated and displayed in Barrhead library.

Another new development this year is the introduction of 'How Did I get Here?', a series of events taking place in all secondary school libraries. Seven people with successful careers in the arts or media will tell school pupils the story of their career paths and perhaps encourage others to follow them. The featured speakers include East Renfrewshire MSP Ken Macintosh, author Christopher Brookmyre and animator Richard Scott (Animator).

The aim of the festival is to raise the profile of storytelling as an art and to change the perception that many people have that storytelling is only for young children. It also hopes to raise the local community’s awareness of the varied and wonderful stories available to them through their local libraries.

Gerry Durkin; Photo: Jim Buchan, East Renfreshire Council

Did you know?

The third East Renfrewshire Storytelling Festival was funded by East Renfrewshire Council and the Scottish Arts Council. Eastwood Park Theatre, venue for some of the festival events, has just reopened after a £1.7million refurbishment, funded by the National Lottery through the Scottish Arts Council.