If there has been one lesson at the heart of everything I’ve done, learned wherever I’ve been throughout this month so far, it’s that there are great stories everywhere. Moving, inspirational, exciting, frightening, funny, cute, wondrous stories all around us.
Nowhere perhaps is this more true than in Settle this autumn, where locals and visitors alike are set to gather for the small town’s second annual storytelling festival.
Organised and managed by Sita Brand, who describes herself as having long been a “storyteller”, over four days in October the festival will bring a range of talents telling tales and bringing together the local community as well as visitors from far and wide.
I headed up to Settle on Tuesday, taking the scenic route through the Dales which leads on to the famous Settle-Carlisle railway line.
Settle itself is a storybook. When you arrive from the south and cross the footbridge to the main entrance, you are met by figurines of Mickey and Minnie Mouse perched decoratively in an alcove beneath the roof. Years ago, the Mickey doll was discovered near the station and given a good home. The poor lad got lonely apparently, so Minnie was brought along soon after to complete the set.
Sita met me at the station and showed me around the town. First, we headed up to the old village green where you can find the smallest art gallery in the world – inside a traditional red phone box. Beside it, meanwhile, you’ll see the park bench which was once pink and where the local cobbler proposed to his wife after lifting it from his shop down in the centre of Settle.
At the last census, Settle was home to 2,145 people, Sita informs me. It is the kind of small, close-knit community you would expect – a place where people often think everyone else knows their business (a familiar rural cliché, but one which is too often cast into doubt when real drama comes along) and where certainly you’ll chance upon any number of friends and acquaintances by simply walking down the high street or towards the station.
But for its modest size, it is by no means a parochial, insular place. In part, this might be down to the huge numbers who come to take the great railway journey to Carlisle. Indeed when I disembarked at Settle, swarms of visitors were ready to fill up the carriage for its next leg, braving the instantly recognisable musk of Northern trains for the sublime vista to be seen through the windows.
But more than that, Settle’s place on the map is secured by projects like Sita’s wonderful Storytelling Festival.
Talents such as Hugh Lupton, Taffy Thomas and Dave Tong are coming along, telling beautiful, inspiring stories to gathered audiences. The festival is fast growing out of its origins, and this year sees one exciting new event as Grant Gordon presents the story of the twentieth century through music, film and photographs, accompanied by a 10-piece band.
The audience is not only there to listen and marvel, however. Workshops are on for anyone and everyone to come along and learn the fundamentals about telling a great story that will have an impact and mean something to someone, just as Sita has always done in her work. This year, the festival is even running a competition in association with Audioboo to find the country’s best amateur storyteller.
Something that Sita, given her heritage and her arrival in the county long ago as an outsider, is particularly proud of is how the festival brings worldwide storytelling traditions and spreads them through a small community setting. Saturday afternoon for instance offers illustrated stories from Japan for children.
People from all over the country will be arriving on that train, greeting Mickey and Minnie at Settle railway station in October – Sita has even had e-mails from as far as Brazil from people trying to find out more.
The community around Settle is of course pivotal, and Sita is passionate about bringing the festival and the stories to them. Presenting events in community venues such as Victoria Hall, the Folly Museum, and the Friends Meeting House. It is telling just how many local shops and venues want to get involved: this is a small place where visitors only briefly pass through and the core of inhabitants are not enough to sustain the stalwart traders.
Before I headed off once again on the train, emboldened by a lovely lunch at Poppies cafe hidden away down a ginnel off the main street, Sita took me on a walk up Castlebergh, close to the fells above. At the top of the rock, we looked down over Settle, Giggleswick adjacent, and the rugged hills of the Dales beyond.
Looking across to the horizon I thought briefly of the stories that each and every one of the traders in the local market or the old mothers and fathers in their homes by the green or the pretty brunette waitress in Poppies might have to tell, but never before had an audience with which to share them.
Come October, thanks to Sita and those working with her to make this happen, so many more will get the chance to hear the stories of others and tell those of their own, letting them reach into their souls and learn to love what is there and savour what is around them.
Even on a misty, clouded afternoon Settle is a beautiful place. Sita is drawing out every contour of that beauty at the festival this autumn, and anyone who drops by will see how.
For further background as to Mark’s challenge check out ‘28 days later’