Fiona Lochheed has interviewed Michael Kaufmann about the Glendaruel Hotel and life in the glen — click here to listen to it
Tag Archives: Glendaruel
The Glendaruel Rap: Dress Rehearsal!
Date: [Afternoon] Wednesday 2nd of October 2013
Location: Kilmodan Primary School, Glendaruel
Workshop: The Glendaruel Rap: Dress Rehearsal!
Walking Youth Theatre Team: Rebecca Bloom, Sadie Dixon-Spain, Alana Mathers
This afternoons session focused on the performance of The Happening History of the Red River Glen rap! The pupils, still on a high from this mornings Mesolithic Forest School, had some great ideas for actions to be performed within the piece! It was great to hear how inspired the pupils were by the project, and to see them putting their Glen of the Red River knowledge into action when performing the Rap! Following some group work, preparing and rehearsing lines and actions, and a whole rap run-through, it was time to bring out the costumes – a much anticipated part of the dress rehearsal! With mighty Mesoliths, groovy Vikings, cool Jacobites, and a few hip modern day Glendaruel-ers, it was obvious not only were the pupils having fun, but they had also picked up on a number of historical fashion ideas throughout the sessions!!
It was time to begin staging our modern day Timeline Crew, and a lot of fun was had! The pupils were already beginning to show some great performance ideas, and many were already performing without script!
Our next workshop will include putting the final touches to the performance, and having the performance filmed to go on our website. We can’t wait!
Workshop: Mesolithic and Neolithic Life in Glen
Date: [Morning] Wednesday 2nd of October 2013
Location: Kilmodan Primary School’s Forest School, Glendaruel
Workshop: Mesolithic and Neolithic Life in the Glen
Walking Youth Theatre Team: Sadie Dixon-Spain and Alana Mathers
Guests: Susan Gaffney and Alison Sykora
The aim of this exercise was to encourage the pupils of Kilmodan Primary to use their imaginations and experience what life would have been like in Mesolithic and Neolithic Glendaruel. This is where the timeline the pupils created begins, and by bringing to life this era, it allowed the children to have a realistic knowledge of how life has evolved, how the Glen has changed, and of course, aspects of life in the Glen which have remained from the Early Settlers.
We took part in ‘Forest School’, a weekly excursion to an allocated outdoor classroom the pupils undertake each week. Sadie and Alana from The Walking Youth Theatre were accompanied by weaver Susan Gaffney, and professional chef Alison Sykora, who kindly shared their expertise to give the pupils hands-on experience of Meso & Neo-lithic life.
Susan taught the pupils how to weave plates and bowls, the way our Early Settling descendants would have done so in the very beginning of life in the Glen. This fantastic hands-on experience was enjoyed by all, and our pupils made some expertly designed serving dishes, just in time for a Mesolithic feast!
Alison cooked up a Mesolithic feast, with a little help from our hardy pupils! Food foraging brought to our attention the vast variety of ingredients that lie in the Glen, and by using traditional methods as far as possible, our pupils had a real-life Hunter Gatherer experience! From fruit to fish, vegetables to seaweed, an extraordinary insight into the feasting habits of 10,000 years ago brought the history of the Red River to life in a very exciting way!
Workshop: New Term, New Website!
Date: Wednesday 21st of August 2013
Location: Kilmodan Primary School
Workshop: New Term, New Website: Hunting and Gathering for Content!
Walking Youth Theatre Team: Sadie Dixon-Spain and Alana Mathers
Our Project
The Glen of the Red River project is part of the All Our Stories scheme, and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. To recap on our project, visit our All Our Stories page on our website.
Over the Summer, our website for the project was created, and the work the pupils of Kilmodan Primary created in the previous school year was given an online home! With their fantastic logo, timeline, and artwork, our website is up and running – now all we need is content!
Sadie and Alana headed down from TWTC HQ this afternoon to host our first new term workshop, to begin gathering the content for the website.
Where do we start?! At the very beginning, of course!
Today’s workshop focused on the Mesolithic and Neolithic time periods, and we learnt all about what life would have been like for our hunter gatherer and early farmer ancestors! The pupils came up with some great stories about life as Mesolithic and Neolithic clans, and created artwork and dramatic pieces of life in the Glen over 8000 years ago!
The pupils also created a soundscape, exploring life in the Glen in Mesolithic times – the story included howling wolves, hunting wild boars, fishing in the river, and running through the foliage back to base camp away from predators!
The research gathered and work created today will be put on the website, to share with the whole world what Glendaruel would have been like at the very beginning of time!
Interview from 1909!
We have just published Margaret Burnley Campbell’s interview of Daniel McEwen in January 1909. Daniel was born in 1820 and as a native of Glendaruel this is a priceless insight into life in the Glen in the 19th Century. Thanks to John MacNaughton for allowing us access to the papers to scan – to see the interview click here.
Workshop: Putting Skills Into Action!
Date: Tuesday 11th of June 2013
Location: Kilmodan Primary School
Workshop: Interviews: Putting Skills Into Action!
Walking Youth Theatre Team: Sadie Dixon-Spain and Alana Mathers
Guests: Mr. McNaughton and Mrs. McKay
The afternoon was split into two sessions. The first focused on recapping from last weeks workshop, and discussing the interviewing skills the pupils had identified and practiced. The class was then split into two groups, one to work with Sadie, and one to work with Alana. The groups were told they were each going to be interviewing a member of the community later in the afternoon, and had the session to prepare for the interview. Sadie’s group were going to interview Mr. John McNaughton, a Glendaruel farmer, who grew up in the Glen. Alana’s group would be interviewing Mrs. McKay, who has lived in the Colintraive and Glendaruel area her whole life, and has many memories to share with the pupils.
In their groups, the pupils made a mind map of questions they would like to ask their interviewee, and the topics they would like to cover in the interview. With Mr. McNaughton, the pupils were interested to find out about farming in the Glen, and what makes Glendaruel an ideal location for farming. They were also interested in hearing about Mr. McNaughton’s childhood, as he too grew up in the Glen.
The group interviewing Mrs. McKay were interested in hearing about Glendaruel’s past, especially how the school has changed from when Mrs. McKay was their age. The pupils were also keen to hear about how the Glen has changed over the years, and what jobs have been available in the area over time.
The pupils also gained experience is using the recording equipment, and had time to practice recording themselves speaking, to ensure they used their strongest, clearest voices to interview.
As the second half of the session approached, the pupils were excited to meet with Mr. McNaughton and Mrs. McKay, and to put their interviewing and recording skills into action. The pupils did a fabulous job interviewing our guests, and both interviewees and interviewers had a great time engaging with Glendaruel’s past.
The interviews can be found on our website. Many thanks to Mr. McNaughton and Mrs. McKay for taking the time to come along to Kilmodan Primary School to work on the Glen of the Red River project.
Workshop: Interviews and Recording Information
Date: Wednesday 5th of June 2013
Location: Kilmodan Primary School
Workshop: Interviews and Recording Information
Walking Youth Theatre Team: Sadie Dixon-Spain and Alana Mathers
The second half of the session focused on interviews, encouraging the pupils to develop their communication, interviewing, research, and media recording skills, as well as discovering who the pupils would like to interview as part of the All Our Stories project, and identify individuals who may be iconic in the pupil’s Glendaruel research.
Firstly, as a group, we discussed what makes a good interview, and what an interviewer must do when conducting a recorded interview. The pupils gave us some great suggestions on questions that they would like to ask fellow Glendaruel residents, and were all very keen to interview the older residents of the Glen, who have lived here for many years. The pupils were enthralled in finding out more about what life was like for their grandparents generation when they were at Primary School – what facilities they had in the Glen, which school they went to, how did they travel to one another’s houses, what games did they play in the wide open spaces, and what they liked about growing up in such a beautiful, but rural, area. Many of the pupils began thinking about their family members who live in the area, and began taking notes on questions they would like to ask them on living in Glendaruel. It was a great exercise to also find out what the pupils already knew about the history of the Glen, particularly through discovering which Clans they descended from, and which family groups have become joined through the years by marriage.
The next part of the session saw the pupils putting their interviewing skills into action, by taking turns in interviewing one another in groups. Following some practice of identifying topics, constructing questions, how to begin and end an interview, and working on producing strong, clear vocals, the class reconvened, and the pupils would conduct their interviews in-front of the class. The interviews were recorded, and then played back to the group, who then identified the good aspects of what they had listened to, and those that had to be worked on. This was a great exercise that really gave the pupils confidence in conducting interviews, and it was encouraging to hear how keen they were to interview members of the community for the project.
Workshop: Creating Visuals
Date: Thursday 25th of April 2013
Location: Kilmodan Primary School, Glendaruel
Workshop: Creating Visuals
Walking Youth Theatre Team: Rebecca Bloom and Alana Mathers
Today’s workshop focused on creating visuals for the website, to showcase the Kilmodan Primary Pupils artistic talents.
To start, we spoke about families and Clans, identifying family groups that currently reside in the Glen that the pupils are a part of, or aware of, and discussing iconic families and Clans from the Glen’s past – particularly the Campbells and the Lamonts. We then moved on to creating Family Shields – each pupil began creating a shield for their family group in the Glen. A variety of shields were created – some including representations of the houses, family members, work and employment, tartan, and of course, the Red River.
We then moved back to the timeline, and spoke about the way the people would have dressed throughout the years. The pupils had some great ideas on what fashion would have been like throughout the different time periods, thinking greatly about what resources, fabrics, and techniques would have been available at each point. From this, the pupils were then each given a period from the timeline, and set the task to create a character as an icon of their specific point in history. From Mesolithic Hunter Gatherers in animal skins, to kilted Jacobites, mysterious looking Monks, to trendy Victorian gents, the pupils captured the timeline characters perfectly! Look out for the characters on the website, and on the timeline!
Workshop: Red River Re-cap!
Date: Thursday 18th of April 2013
Location: Kilmodan Primary School, Glendaruel
Workshop: Red River Re-cap!
Walking Youth Theatre Team: Sadie Dixon-Spain and Alana Mathers
Today’s short workshop was very high-energy, and lots of fun! The pupils were all very enthusiastic about engaging with the Glen of the Red River project following the break.
To refresh the memories of the pupils, we played a number of ‘Timeline’ games, to encourage the pupils to think about the history of the Glen, and the time periods they have already studied. It was great to see how much information the pupils had remembered, and to hear the questions they were asking on life in the Glen throughout the ages.
The pupils also highlighted the particular historical periods they were most interested in learning about, and identified ones the curriculum had already touched on.
This afternoons activities allowed us to gather facts the pupils were already well versed in regarding particular historical time periods, particularly the Vikings.
Workshop: Timelines
Date: Thursday 14th February 2013
Location: Kilmodan Primary School, Glendaruel
Workshop: Timelines
Walking Youth Theatre Team: Fiona Lochhead and Alana Mathers
This afternoon began with a brief chat with the pupils on the previous workshop; what we talked about, the activities we took part in, and what they learned. This acted as a refresher for those who took part, and an introduction to the project to those pupils who were absent on the workshop of the 31st January.
We then moved on to discuss “Timelines” – What is a timeline, what information does it show, and how do we create one? Fiona shared her own personal timeline with the youth group: Born, moved house, school, university, jobs, today, etc. This gave the pupils a visual aid to help understand what a timeline is, and how it is made. The pupils were then put into groups, and set the task of completing their own personal timeline.
Timeline Task: At the beginning, some of the pupils found this task a challenge, which was expected. WYT staff & teachers worked with the groups to help create Timelines. The Timeline task was not created to gain information for the project as such, but to help the pupils understand how to construct and read a Timeline. All the students created their own Timeline, and from general feedback while working with the different groups, it seemed it was an interesting and enjoyable task. We then brought the children together, and asked them to share iconic points from their personal Timelines. Many were eager to share! Events included moving house, holidays, successful times on the farm, pets, and injury.
We then discussed how historical Timelines are useful tools in research, and how they can be constructed and read. It was explained that, with the schools help, we were creating a Timeline of Glendaruel, looking in to the history of their home Glen.
Human Jigsaw & Timeline: Following a break, we moved from the classroom to the activity area, to play a game with the pupils. Each student was given a card, which had three pictures and a name on it. Each card was from a particular period of history, all of which were relevant to the Glendaruel area. The aim of the game was for each child to use their card to find their partner amongst the other students, by asking questions about the pictures, and the names of the characters. Pairs included Vikings, Modern Day Glendaruel inhabitants, Jacobites, and Christian Monks. When each pair had been uncovered (which actually happened a lot quicker than expected!) it was time to get the pairs into the Human Timeline. Fiona gave a brief explanation of each period of history while the pupils were arranged into the correct order.
The pupils were also given a Glendaruel Word-search, which appeared to go down well as a “break” from the information overload!
Each pupil was given brief questionnaire for them to share with their parents to help them discuss the project with their parents & guardians, encouraging the children to keep an interest in the project, to engage parents/guardians with the project, and to find out more information on the Glendaruel residents and their history for the “All Our Stories” project.