posted on 20 Jun 2016

Letterpress Project at The Water Orton Carnival

I was invited to do an event reading five classic stories at half hourly intervals at the Water Orton Carnival on June 18th. This is a long established and popular community festival which is in its 49th year. I went with Chris Collett, friend, ex colleague, Letterpress Project committee member and well known writer of crime fiction who had been invited along in the prestigious role as the local celebrity. This included waving from a chauffeured car in the procession,  the unenviable and very difficult tasks of awarding prizes for the many impressive carnival floats and then judging the Fancy Dress and Beautiful Baby competitions all of which she managed with suitable aplomb. 

I on the other hand was directed straight to my little story tent which had already been decorated with flags, a cosy rug and cushions which made it look very comfortable and inviting. The rain clouds loomed threateningly all day but this did not deter the enthusiastic, smiley carnival organisers who had apparently been setting up the stalls since 5.30 am. The Water Orton folk started to pour into the field with the procession just in time for my first story ' The Gruffalo's Child' by Julia Donaldson at 1.00 and it was very enjoyable to read to different groups of children and adults throughout the afternoon.

 

I was helped by a wonderfully sensible 7 year old child named Bridget who organised the book display and various freebies and pulled in the crowds. She suggested that next year we might both dress up as each of the story characters to grab even more attention. I'm not quite sure about that but I think that I might ask to be a little bit further away from the extremely loud music from the central arena as had to shout above it for quite a lot of the time!

It was great to share in the enthusiasm for all the books with babies and young children with their parents who listened and joined in. The favourite this time was 'The Gingerbread Man' which is one I always like to read with its build up of tension and characters, simple well known refrain and rather sad ending. Reading stories at community events like this seems to be unusual but it works well amid the general mayhem and noise and so I would be very happy to do it again if invited.

Karen Argent

20th June 2016