A tangent perhaps, not part of the original project, but certainly relevant; three nights of Ghost Stories read in one of Ulverstons' most loved but rarely accessed buildings. The 18th Cottage has recently been restored by Ulverston Town Council and a team of Conservation Architects, and has been opened weekly during the warmer weather by historians Iain McNicol and Karen Mason. Evenings like this though are best suited to the darker nights; sad tales are best for winter.
Alongside excellent readings of James, Edith Nesbit and Jerome K. Jerome by Karen and Iain ,I contributed three original stories written over the last few years and relating to the archive work in Seasoning and a previous project. The characters in the stories are themselves collectors, archivists or biographers each occupying a small space, which occasionally shifts to reveal a larger, stranger parallel world.
A truant schoolboy becomes an aerial, a receiver for submerged energies summoned from abandoned ROC stations.
Buildings grow over each other like plants, defending themselves against further development. A biographer's illumination of the dark corners of a photographer's life leads to paranoia and flight.
The language and structure imitates that of James' work. Their brevity refers to the condensed versions that I first came across on television, and the role of radio, TV and James himself in maintaining a tradition of oral, communal story telling. The characters and situations described aim to reflect the endless mutability of archetypes manifest in the imagination and day to day life of this battered, drifting and increasingly -willfully- isolated land.
Our individual and collective imaginations may turn out to be the last resource open to us. Whatever else we squander, let's at least maintain and nurture them.
Thanks to Iain and Karen , to Green Lane Archaeology, Ulverston Town Council and to our audience.
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