So many stories

A progress report

So many stories

When I wrote my application for the St Hugh’s Foundation for the Arts Artists’ Respond grant I stated I wanted to collect and tell the stories of the Isle of Axholme landscape. I had a fond belief that I would be able to do that easily within the bounds of the project. I would visit the archives, talk to lots of people and be ready to write those stories. My head was full of ideas of the kinds of stories I would seek out – from farmers and historians and people who walked the land for their health. I would listen to the birds and to the rivers and to the wind and to the sounds of the land itself – the sound of boots pulled from mud, the swishing of the wheat against my legs, the groan of the trees in high winds. It felt like a manageable project.

Then I started researching – spending hours in the library and talking to Tim, the Local History Librarian, meeting farmers and their wives and widows, talking to artists who are inspired by the landscape. I‘ve visited churches and graveyards and talked to volunteers who showed me round their ancient buildings and shared the hidden tales and secrets.  And I’ve walked, in all weathers, observing the moods of the land and listening to its song.

And the thing I have realised is just how many stories there are and just how many ways of telling them. At first it felt overwhelming – all these voices clamouring to be heard, some loud some quieter but all bringing a different note to the chorus. I have had hours where I’ve felt I would drown in stories and my pen has been paralysed.

Gradually though I’m beginning to accept that I can never hear all the stories of the land and its people and I certainly can never tell them all.  I am spending some time now cataloguing the different sources in the hope that it may help others, who come after me, to spin their different tales. And I will discover which voices speak most directly to me, the ones to which my heart responds. Those are the stories I will tell, in the best way I can.

The Isle of Axholme is geographically small – maybe eighty square miles – and it’s not well represented in literature. But it is as rich as anywhere in the layers of story which have accreted one upon the other over the centuries. I have been humbled to recognise the richness of the land and am honoured that I get to play my small part as chronicler.

This is a project which could last a lifetime.