The Blitz, The Ritz, the 123

Making Memories, Gallery Oldham

Waltz Steps, Jennifer 2013 Making Memories

123

it went 1, 2, 3

did you go dancing to the radio?

the Home guard Club at Failsworth

all kinds

modern sequence barn dancing

the slosh

do doo doo

123 its a lovely feeling

the sloshing about with a gentleman

me boyfriend then

(never danced all me life

I have 2 left feet)

the quickstep 

line dancing

(no, I've never danced

the square tango)

we've been dancing all day

Winny and Albert

the waltz, the jitterbug

the 1 2 3

I tell you in Scarborough they couldn't dance

I say God bless ya Oldham

afternoon dancing

(Dancing? Far too busy!)

Dancing – how many nights did we go out?

4 nights a week

played the organ

(more of a wallflower me)

always gone in for dancing with Albert

dancing at weddings

The Ritz, the Blitz

The Plaza, there and there and there

The Theatre Royal, they mocked it up

in lights Winny and Albert

two people making a fantastic kiss

with the

BBC right on the doorstep absolutely

123 for a waltz

in the war years

love songs for soldiers away

I tell you where dancing took place: the Isle of Man

Reginald Dixon playing the organ 123

a long dress for the waltz

short for the jitterbug

I tell you where they did dance: Heaton Park, my gosh

Blackpool in the Tower at weekend

I wish them days would come back

the sailor's hornpipe

Oldham afternoons at the City Hall

was that the 1234?

Count the numbers and set off

John, Winny, Dorothy, Edward, Hilda, Flo

19 Sept 2013

Limecroft Care Home, Oldham

Tango, Barbara, 2014 Making Memories

For further information about Making Memories, please visit arthur-and-martha.blogspot.co.uk

spends

Making Memories, Gallery Oldham

four brothers, three sisters

shilling a week spends

dad was a tailor

all got our ration of spends

all got our spends

couldn’t sponge anything else

had to ration it

don’t let one eat them all

happens in a big family

all got our spends

didn’t buy a lot

four brothers, three sisters

pudding was fruit

slices of apple were all

the sweets after a meal

if it went all at once it was

all your own fault

with eight, they couldn’t afford

to give more to one than another

three sisters, and four.

Agnes

Springboard Group, Oldham

For more information about the Making Memories Project please visit arthur-and-martha.blogspot

Oxo

Making Memories, Gallery Oldham

Snakes and ladders game, from Oldham Galleries Handling Collection.

Oxo

O Saturday afternoon, Oldham Edge

truth, dare, force

kiss such a body

marbles and all sorts

kiss a girl called Edith

Oldham Edge, backside of gasworks

a spine of hills, trees, grassed top

cross from Higginshaw-O

sledging down our street

skating

the neighbours shout – ‘clear off!’

take it to the blacksmith

irons for the sledge

knock it and screw it and bend the conduit

O Lees Brook

put wooden boats at top

run all the way, following them down

made me own submarine

with a bit of lead and wood

twist, pontoon,

truth, dare, force

O snakes and ladders

a doll’s house with furniture

Saturday afternoon to Newhey,

catch the bus from Spotland Lane

a drink of Oxo and play

whist or cards with granddad

cribbage, draughts

jumping over

you huff em

huffing, crowning

either way

a few years ago

when I was a young boy

Saturday afternoon, Oxo.

Group Poem
Springboard Group, Oldham

For more information about the Making Memories Project please visit arthur-and-martha.blogspot

Sea Fever Variations

Making Memories, Gallery Oldham

A question we keep running into is how to make writing or art exercises that are accessible to many folks, without being hopelessly dumbed down. 

The answer comes in the unlikely guise of William S Burroughs, the notorious inventor of the 'cut-up'. We have often brought cut ups to our workshops. They used to be among the artiest avant-garde writing strategies, but are now very commonplace. The beauty of cut-ups is that they allow unusual, tangential logics into the making of a piece of writing. 

More photos at flickr

There are many variations on cut-uppery in our workshops; usually somebody will write down people's reminiscences about a particular subject and then cut them up into individual lines. The participant then arranges those lines in whatever order they like. Once the order has been decided, however wild and random (ah, Saint William, delinquent angel!) the lines are sellotaped down onto paper.

For the group poem below, we took notes about people's reminiscences of holiday travel on the trams, omnibuses and seaside donkeys of yesteryear. We also read out the poem Sea Fever by John Masefield, which was a set text in British schools, decades ago. The reminiscences were cut up into individual lines and intermixed with John Masefield's famous verses. The results were sometimes funny and sometimes eerily lovely. They started pleasure and recognition in the makers and I hope they managed to put a little of their worldview onto a piece of paper. 


Sea Fever (Variations)

I must go to the canal again

the lonely canal and the sky

and a grey mist on the river's face

and the white sails go "bye bye"

and a grey sky breaking

and the wheel's kick 

all over the Isles

a boat in the canal, a dog in the boat

Norfolk Broads and the wind's 

song shaking

(Eunice & Walter Mabey)

Benidorm, Tenerife

I've done my travelling

the vagrant gypsy life

on coach and charabang

Oldham Wakes, back when summer was proper

Blackpool every year

into the sea and stay til night

I must go again to the seas of 1973

£5 a passport 

to the gull's way and the whale's way

(Alice)

to the holiday resorts 

it is a military operation, look for

the coach numbers

all the coaches in the Northwest converge

wheels and the wind song and white sails on the M62

where the wind's

like a whetted knife

follow the metal on the lines

the clattering tram

they've knocked that bridge down

(Stephen Cullum)

out into the gloom 

it swings and batters 

you never saw it you see, the sea 

sundering waves lost and gone

with the "owd trams" 

from Oldham Brewery

by boat, get a coach

go to Germany first, then Austria

then Poland

and the stars and storms

(Molly)

illuminations 

I think "very nice"

and all I ask is a windy day, clouds flying

a trip to the lightshow, very nice 

and the flung spray and blown spume

and the sea-gulls

a shaking movement

and quiet sleep 

and a sweet dream 

when the long trick's over

Anne

Jan 2014

Oldham

More photos at flickr