Remnants

This Saturday I will be at the Old House Museum in Bakewell, celebrating a night at the museum and collaborating with a group of talented people known as the IAC, art for art's sake. There will be photos from Jools Sewell and Billy Bye, and art from Debra Stone and Keith How. I'll be taking my yellow typewriter to encourage visitors to type their thoughts and reactions. The theme is REMNANTS and I know there's been some great explorations of this topic, already shared as teasers on Facebook . I'd thought of landscape and geology, extinct volcanoes, healing wells and springs, blue john and crinoid limestone. I thought of writing about these remnants of past ages, past times. However a couple of weeks ago I was handed an old Asda carrier bag full of papers, maps, envelopes full of old typewritten stories and sheets of paper covered with my once neat handwriting dating back to the 70s and 80s. In spite of my efforts to clear all the cupboards in my house before I sold it, I had overlooked this bag, found at the back of a cupboard. Remnants of my own life. I'll be displaying and talking about them on Saturday night. Most of it relates to local history and folklore, so it will be perfect for a night at the museum. Some of it relates to past work teaching English, something I am hoping to revisit in the next few months.