Last Day of TEN+1

"I think it is cool that you're working with your daughter and she knows more than you."  This was one of many memorable moments during the final day of TEN+1, and was said to me by a young person as I was helping R with her workshop - she had to show me how to use a glue gun.  My work is done!  It actually made me so happy - they were seeing something they weren't expecting (us working together and mother learning from daughter) and I was seeing (again) how our lovely R has achieved so much.  They really loved her workshop, making time machines out of various bits of recycled materials (have included an extra of a part of one of them).  Their imagination ran riot and their conversations were fascinating - discussions about the need for the engine part to have a shower attachment so that any BO could be washed off, a console requiring a lunchbox attachment that could serve both hot and cold snacks, and disagreements over whose great great great grandad invented the engine.  At the end of the day their finished machines featured in a short performance that the young people had put together when not in R's workshop.  They will all have taken away so much from these 3 days, and I certainly have too.

She'll not like me doing this but I want to say a big thank you to Andi who runs the youth theatre and organised this festival.  Over the last decade she has made such a difference to so many young people's lives, not just by putting some on the path to careers in the industry, but also the more subtle and perhaps more important gift of giving them the creative space and emotional and practical support to grow their self-confidence and sense of self in such a safe environment.  She loves her youth theatre members and I sometimes wonder if she is aware of much these recipients love and value her.  I am, possibly because of having photographed so many of her workshops and performances, I see it their eyes, their body language and in their joy.  I hope she and her legacy will continue for at least another ten years.