I was honoured to be invited, alongside George, to perform at Olivia Armstrong‘s storytelling evening “Ships in the Night”.
It’s held aboard the Cutty Sark, the 150-year-old tea Clipper which is in dry dock in Greenwich.
Olivia was one of the first storytellers I ever saw, and she is a complete inspiration to us! She had this idea of the Cutty Sark sailing away every night on a cloud of imagination and when she told us, we couldn’t wait to be part of it.
Thanks to everyone who came, a sell-out audience, we had to turn people away.
Olivia told the magical and romantic Russian story of Sadko who fell in love with the river itself. George told the true tale of the SS Great Eastern which was built just across the river from Greenwich. It’s a ghost story- and for those who are sceptical about such things have a read of this blog. I told a tale about footsteps in the Greenwich foot tunnel which came out a bit scarier than I planned! I followed it up with a hopeful story called Angry Janet which is one of my favourites. I heard the original from Sef Townsend and if you want to enjoy it, there’s a very old recording on the bottom of this page. To end, George sung Sailors Alphabet. If you don’t know it, definitely check out Fairport Convention singing it!
Thank you so VERY much to the staff of the Cutty Sark who were excellent, to Olivia for curating the night and inviting us to tell… and to the audience who, as always, were the makers of the magic.
