Gaynor-twirls are not always successful. Often instead of going in a perfect round spin, my body teeters, leaning Tower of Pisa like, and then plummets to end up in a most undignified heap. This time however, my body did a Tower of Pisa lean, wobbled to the correct angle and finished in a Gaynor-twirl of perfection! I will leave the style of that perfection to your imagination!!!
“I love being in Hampstead,” I cried.

Hampstead seems to have a buzz about it. My friend, B and I left the home where we were staying and headed straight for our breakfast haunt, Le Pain Quotient. It is a charming little coffee shop that seems to have a golden glow of warmth inviting you in. We always head straight for the same table that looks out onto the busy street. What a blissful way to begin our day. Sipping hot chocolate, devouring a warm, crispy. buttery almond croissants and planning the day ahead.

Leaving the coffee shop, my eyes lit upon an antique shop about fifty metres away.
“Oh, B, I know I can barely afford to ‘breathe’ in there, but please, I have to go in.”
We passed through these luxurious old green curtains that had bells attached. The owner, a red haired, green eyed woman, alerted by the bells, looked up at us.
“May we just look around? I can’t afford to buy anything but this shop simply enticed me?”
The owner laughed. “Look around all you like,” she said in this gorgeous Irish accent.
What glorious and splendid treasures met my eyes in that trove of a shop. A eighteenth century silver box that would have looked so perfect on my dressing table. It was going for £523. A touch out of my price range! 

We wandered around Hampstead and discovered a quaint bookshop. How I love bookshops. This was my favourite kind because it was a second hand shop. It had old books peeping shyly down at me from atop their shelves. Right at the back, on the fifth shelf there was an red book that seemed to be beckoning to me.
“Yes, come nearer, come on,” it seemed to say, “you’ll like what I contain between my covers.”
I reached for the book and it slipped between my fingers and fell open onto the floor.
“Glory, I’m sorry!” I said to the shop assistant as I gently picked it up. “Oh, it’s Yeats,” I said.
The book had fallen open on He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven.
“Gosh, this was one of the first poems I learned at drama school. After my fall, it was a poem that I managed to re-learn.”
“Say it for me,” B asked curious.
I shut my eyes briefly and from somewhere inside of me the word came tumbling out:

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark clothes
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread upon my dreams.

On our way to Belsize Park tube station, we took a short cut up a pathway that snakes past the Royal Free Hospital where construction work was under way. Hoardings had been erected with a startling difference. That was when I saw them. The paintings!A 30-metre-long outdoor gallery with impressive large scale reproductions of paintings imprinted all the way. I drew in my breath sharply and simply stared. They were laminated paintings that were of Hampstead and other areas in London. They were startling in the striking colours and their vibrancy was almost stupefying. I moved from one painting to the next, drinking in the images shining out at me. On the last hoarding was a write up about the artist, Oliver Yu Chan. It began:
The paintings displayed here are by local artist, Oliver Yu Chan, born 8th December 1986, a young man on the autistic spectrum.
This artist was autistic.

I have a friend that has a young autistic daughter who I recently met. I came away knowing that I needed to understand this disorder more. Autism is an intricate developmental disorder. It is made up of social and communication difficulties. Self-stimulatory and repetitive behaviours result and narrow, overly-focused interests. I saw all this that day at my friends house. Her daughter was unable to talk and was perhaps thrown and disturbed by my presence. This resulted in incredibly repetitive behaviour. There is a school of thought that seeks to manage and control it. There are also those that see autism as a neuro-diversity that needs to be understood. Once understood, then the person’s potential can be realised. This I believe is the method Oliver Yu Chan’s mother took. 

As a young child, Oliver had very little speech and language and couldn’t sit still. He was perpetually on the move. He had many ‘obsessions’. His mother, Caroline, was always keen to encourage artistic interests as way of diverting him. She presented her child with a picture of a hedgehog.
“Oliver, do you see this picture of a hedgehog? Try and copy it,” she coaxed.
Oliver, whose attention was always flipping from one thing to another, looked at the picture, slowed down and began to draw. He recreated it beautifully. He looked at his picture and he smiled. As he later said: “That was the beginning of my ‘Amazing  Journey in Art’.” 

Oliver ‘speaks’ to the world through his paintings. I have found more of his art on the internet: oliveryuchan@tumblr.com
It was there that I discovered one of my favourite paintings. It was done  in 2018 and is simply called: Freud Museum London in Swiss Cottage. It is merely a picture of a house with a car parked outside. Yet it speaks to me of the artist. A man who sees our world as a place of colour and vibrancy. Isn’t his sky ringing and shouting beauty into the world?

Hampstead sparkles with an energy and vigour that stimulates me. We boarded the tube and the doors shut on Hampstead.
“If I were to live in England, B,  there is no doubt in my mind that I would live in Hampstead.”
B laughed.
“Oh, you of champagne taste, you would never be able to afford it!”
“Ahhhh, but I would choose a ‘partner’ who would,” I joked back. “Or, you never know, I might win the Lottery!”

Hampstead, brilliant, glorious Hampstead!!!

The post Hampstead Happiness! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.

There are so many things that you forget in life. Isn’t it strange how I remember not only reading my first book, but also the words within it. That was a momentous time in my life. The time when the world of books was revealed to me. How was I to know what a stimulating universe, Janet and John would lead me into?

When I had my fall off the stage at the State Theatre, I suffered brain damage. This affected my reading ability. I would look at a page of a book and I would just see this jumbled mass of words. I didn’t know how to make sense of this horrifying heap of meaningless phrases. Where did I begin? I had no knowledge of how to separate the words or what to do when I reached the end of a line. My eyes continued on and there was nothing there! Where did they go to next? My Occupational Therapist, Stella Sims, cut a two centimetre long rectangular hole out of a strip of cardboard. Then she held it over one word within the nightmarish mass. 

“Read this, Gaynor,” she instructed me.

I looked at the word that lay in it’s little cardboard bed and said: “The”

Stella moved the card to the next word and I read: “girl”

She moved it again and I said: “laughed.” I looked up and said: “Oh, the girl laughed. I read a sentence, Stella! I am managing, aren’t I? Let me do it?”

I took the card and continued until the end of the line. “But…there are no more words. What happens now?” I said despairingly.

“Put your finger there to mark your place, and then go back to the beginning of the line but move one down. You’ll see a whole other line. Put the card on the first word of that line and then continue to read.”

The following week, Stella cut the cardboard to fit two words and then three. And this was how I began to read again. My brain had to learn how to focus on individual words, in different sentences on separate lines. I had to re-teach my brain the process of reading.

Once my brain had mastered this ability, I devoured books. 

For eighteen years, I was completely deaf and found communicating with people difficult. Books were different. I used to sit in a lounge full of people and was unable to understand a word that was being said. So I bought out a book and would soon be lost in another world. Books were my life saver!  They spoke to me in a language I understood. With a laugh, I can say that often I still speak back.

“Oh, you make me so mad,” I muttered to a character as I put down my book and went through to the kitchen to grab some chocolate from the fridge. Then with a piece of Lindt chocolate in my mouth, “You wait, you will get your comeuppance!” was my retort to the character as I began reading once more. 

Having my Cochlear Implants and now being able to hear, changed my relationship with books. My love affair with them remains but they are no longer used as rescue equipment. Books give you an insight into the minds and workings of people. This is something I have always loved.

Recently I came across this most amazing project set up by Asijike Arts, a lottery funded initiative of the George Arts Theatre. It aims to inspire, educate and entertain children and young people in the George community. Their Book Tree scheme hopes to increase literacy levels in George by encouraging people to read more. I was delighted to learn from Lauretta, one of the Asijike interns, more about this wonderful concept. The idea is to plant a ‘forest’ of Book Trees throughout George. The first beautiful tree was set up in Inkcubeko Youth and Science Centre in Thembalethu. Seventy donated books were joyfully placed at the trees base. These books can be borrowed, read and swapped for other books. If anyone falls totally in love with a book that they are reluctant to return, they are allowed keep it.

“So, Book Trees aren’t only for children?” I asked.

“No, they are for all ages.” 

My bookshelves are positively groaning with the wonderful weight of books. There are those books that no longer hold an interest for me. I have a long drawer in which these books lie, hopelessly cluttered. I can almost hear them crying out to me: “Please don’t leave us shut in here. We want to be read!” 

There are two Book Tree drop off points: The George Arts Theatre and George Museum. I shall be taking my drawer with the muttering books inside, to the George Theatre on Monday. Mums has so many children’s books which she kept for her grandchildren. They loved them but have now outgrown them. Wouldn’t they make a wonderful donation to a Book Tree! I must persuade Mums and her children’s books to accompany me and my muttering drawer to the theatre! 

Whilst illuminating me about the Book Tree project, Lauretta explained that they were also producing a play to promote the initiative.

“You have a production called The Book Tree?” I asked in astonishment.

“Yes,” she said, laughing at my amazement. “Asijike Arts have also devised a wonderful play. It opens on the 13th November. It’s free for the schools attending. And then on 17th, its open to everyone.  Please won’t you spread the word?”

Asijike believes in bringing theatre to the children and children to the theatre. They put on their first production The Dreambox which drew almost 3000 children. I remember performing for children. It is one of the most rewarding forms of entertainment for an actor. The children lose themselves in what is happening and shout out advice, sing along and freely comment on the action. 90% of the children that saw The Dreambox had never been to a theatre before. What an experience for the children and the actors!

It saddens me that Asijike’s lottery funding is drawing to an end. Unless a sponsor is found it will cease to exisit. They are doing vital work in our community. How I wish I was a billionaire. Asijike would not want for a thing!

Not only will I spread the word about The Book Tree production but I will be sitting in the audience waiting to be charmed by the magic of theatre for children. Books and theatre. Two of the greatest loves of my life!

Roll on mid-November!

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The post The Book Tree! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.

      Every morning our Tweeting begins by commenting on how the George mountain is looking, a sort of weather forecast! We smiled when we realised that each morning our forecast was being re-tweeted (shared) by @SA_Artists. Blow me down, one morning we noticed that @SA_Artists had tweeted a picture of MY mountain. Gosh, @SA_Artists must be in George!

      “Fan-bloody-tastic!”

       Later on, thinking about this whole wonderful story, I marvelled at the power of social media. It can be used negatively, cyber bullying is a terrible thing. But, it can also have tremendous positive consequences. It was through blogging and tweeting that Kingsley came into our lives. Through television that we learnt about Baleni Senior Secondary School. Yes, social media is this incredibly powerful tool.

The post Books, books, glorious books! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.