Old Wives/Husbands Tales activity in St Leonards
Remembering remedies of the past through poetry
By John Cheves
Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive
Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive
Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive
Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive
Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus Archive
The pictures here were taken at an ten activity organised by WRVS Heritage Plus at the WRVS Centre in St Leonards in early 2010, where participants explored Old Wives (and Husbands) Tales, through group discussions and creative writing exercises.
The workshops were run by local poet John Knowles, describing the sessions he writes:
Working with the W.R.V.S. on Old Wives/Husbands Tales, has been a great experience and one which took us to unexpected corners. The overall aim of the project was to look at the way, in former times we may have been more adept at self medicating and also in using natural herbs, spices, flowers and foods to take a better care of ourselves and even make ourselves look glamorous. The course explored many familiar and new Old Wives tales but also went on to look at beauty tips, massage meditation and even during one racy week, aphrodisiacs.
Although the main focus of each week was a poetry exercise based around the workshop topic, it was a very hands on course, with teas being sampled, strawberries dipped in chocolate eaten, herbs rubbed between fingers, incense burnt and hands massaged with our own house mix of essential oils and vitamins. Despite all of these distractions or maybe because of all of the excess stimulants floating around the group turned out some truly inspiring poetry. many of the attendees swore blind that they had never written poetry or showed any interest in it, most had to be cajoled into reading their work, but what was remarkable was both the breadth of the work as well as the depth of the poems. Truly some beautiful, engaging, funny, even occasionally saucy poetry produced by this group.
What I am most proud of is the fact that poetry was ultimately demystified and made safe, I think the legacy will be an interest in writing poetry and less of a fear of reading it, plus I imagine a healthy interest in chocolate dipped strawberries and meditative moments.
John Knowles, Course leader.