Festival blog

Storytelling and drama at the YMCA

Story and drama have long been used as devices to assist children to understand situations which may be complex and difficult to grasp in logical terms. With the help of gifted story-teller, Daru McAleese, children attending Penicuik YMCA after school club had the opportunity to take part in a participative story telling session which sensitively explored the themes of loss and grief.

Daru has a natural empathy with children and the ability to create a magical world which draws young people in and enables them to bridge the gap between logic and magic, giving them new emotional resources on which to draw.

Penicuik YMCA also ran Creative remembering of those we have lost, a day of relaxing creative activity for people of all ages to get together and share memories of departed loved ones.

Led by experienced and sensitive art tutor, Jan Miller, the day provided an opportunity for participants to find a creative way of expressing their memories of loved ones in an informal supportive setting.

Morag McDonald, Youth Development Worker

mothers remembering mothers

Long ago I realised that mothers like myself rarely actually get to decide how we spend mothers day. We (very gratefully) accept good wishes and hopefully enjoy a cup of tea and a long lie. So….every year, on Mothers Day eve, I invite lovely friends who are also mothers and we spend an afternoon or evening together enjoying some good food, good company and good wine. And so it has been for twelve years.

But when several of those people find themselves grieving for a mother themselves and Mother’s Day suddenly becomes a tricky subject, how do we carry on? Well…To Absent Friends offered a way to try getting together and remembering mothers instead of avoiding the issue.

What about, instead of just getting together to share food for the sake of it, we made the food the focus and a way to honour absent friends.

And so a feast was enjoyed and memories shared; of recipes passed on from mother to daughter, of grannys who taught us to bake to feed our families, and of recipes then shared with our own children.

“I always remember that although I bake as a treat, my granny baked to make the most of the little money she had. As a wee girl she taught me her recipes and I'd add a wee bit extra sugar. She used to call me an extravagant wee hinny!”

By Ali Kerr

Musical Memories

Thousands of older people live in Care Homes in Scotland, and most will at some point have experienced the death of close family or friends. How do Care Homes provide positive opportunities for residents to share stories and reminiscences of dead loved ones?

There is a huge potential for Care Homes to take the lead in celebrating and establishing To Absent Friends as a new and positive part of Scottish culture and Greenhills Care Home in Biggar is planned a Musical Memories afternoon for residents and staff to enjoy.

Lynne Hardie, Manager, said:

“We've set aside an afternoon in November when residents will be able to request songs and tunes that remind them of someone important to them. We’re getting live musicians involved, and it will be fascinating to hear people’s choices and the stories that go with them. It is important that staff and residents have opportunities to share memories of people who’ve died, and the To Absent Friends festival is a great excuse to do something a bit different.“

Beer mat chat

Earlier this year, a friend and I were in a pub in Rose Street and somehow, I can’t remember how, the subject got round to people we each used to know, but who are no longer with us – because they’ve died. I talked about Chris – I remembered how he loved going up hills. He had legs about 8 foot long and never seemed to get out of breath. I’d be sweating and gasping like pig behind him. He was like a dog let off the lead whenever he got on the hill. One time he did his ankle, and it was pitch black before we got down. I often think about him if I’m walking on a hill somewhere.

It is weird – most of the time in the pub we chat about the usual stuff – footy, holidays, work... But this made a change, it was good.

At work the next day, we got thinking about the To Absent Friends festival in November, and how for many of us, pubs are a pretty natural place to chat about all kinds of things, including our memories of friends of family who are dead.

So, we set up a crowd-funding website with the hope of funding some beer mats to get conversations around to the subject of celebrating and remembering the lives of dead loved ones.

Luckily, it turned out we weren't the only ones that thought that it was a good idea, and we've managed to get enough money together to produce beermats in time for To Absent Friends this November.

Would you like to see the finished product? Check them out here. Get in touch and we'll send you some, if you promise to leave them in a pub, a café, staff room or canteen so that others can see them too.