Beyond Words in Gloucestershire

28th October 2017

BEYOND WORDS IN GLOUCESTERSHIRE

This year at the recent Cheltenham Literary Festival 2017, Miranda Walker was working with Cheltenham Literature Festival’s Beyond Words project, which supports children with severe mental or physical illness through creative writing and performance. Working with eight students who have suffered illnesses that have left them isolated, at home or in hospital, Miranda teamed up with the Festival to bring these young people together in face-to-face sessions in seven inspiring locations to write.

Beyond Words, an outreach programme, was created to improve both students’ writing and their well-being, which go hand in hand. Forming part of the students’ extra-curricular enrichment programme, a group of students met to write over a series of months. As students educated by Hospital Education Services typically spend a lot of time at home or in hospital, we carefully chose inspiring, atmospheric locations in which to meet. These influenced the content of the teaching sessions and the students’ writing. Over to Miranda:

Writer’s showcase

Our first meeting took place at Stroud’s Museum In The Park, where we were surrounded by nature in all its autumnal glory. This inspired work about both the fragility and hardiness of nature, as well as a particularly memorable time shift story set in a futuristic woodland.

Writer’s Showcase

Manor By The Lake, a majestic and romantic Cheltenham manor house, was our next location. We explored historical fiction and adaptations, including a wide ranging look at interpretations of Romeo and Juliet – from Westside Story to a more recent Taylor Swift song. The written responses from students included a powerful poem, which was to leave me teary eyed when its author read it aloud at the close of the Young Writers’ Showcase event at The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival, just recently.

Manor by the Lake

At the exciting Cheltenham Everyman Theatre, we focused on scripts and comedy, and discovered some very promising comedy talent within the group.

The Everyman Theatre

Cheltenham Festivals published an anthology of our students’ work, Once Upon A Place, which features a more light-hearted chapter conceived at the Everyman, alongside a string of comically twisted proverbs.

Museum in the Park

The location that captured our students’ imaginations the most was perhaps Sudeley Castle. We met in the Banqueting Room, and on hearing the history of the site from our tour guide, wrote pieces inspired by real events.

Sudeley Castle Gatehouse

Diverse writers have continually been inspired by Gloucestershire’s history and landscape; Laurie Lee (1914-1997) was born in Stroud then moved to Slad, which is featured in his best-known work Cider With Rosie – the first in an autobiographical trilogy. Rev W V Awdry (1911-1997), lived for more than 30 years in Rodborough, near Stroud, and wrote the famous Railway Series children’s books featuring the well-loved Thomas the Tank Engine. JK Rowling of Harry Potter fame grew up near Dursley (a name given to a family of characters in her books), and poet Pam Ayres still lives in Cirencester today.

There’s no doubt that the next generation of writers will continue to find their own inspiration here.

Miranda Walker

Miranda Walker is and author and scriptwriter and was the writer-in-residence for this year’s Beyond Words project, a three-year project run by Cheltenham Festivals and Gloucestershire Hospital Education Service and supported by The St. James’s Place Foundation. It is just one of the many life-changing education outreach projects that Cheltenham Festivals support all year round, find out more at on this link. Miranda is best known for her plays including Fly Eddie Fly, about Olympic ski jumper Eddie the Eagle; flagship comedies The Now Show and The News Quiz for BBC Radio 4; and her story books and educational books for publishers OUP and Hodder.

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