Class Work Tribune by Blanche Pictures

2020 free

Class Work Tribune The paper of Bolsover Reading Group Edited by Esther Johnson

Accompaniment

To accompany that person is to walk beside that person; to become a companion; to be present … we are implicitly saying: ‘Your life is important. It’s worth my time to talk to you. It may be worth your time to talk to me.’

Staughton Lynd b.1929 from ‘Oral history from below’, in ‘Living Inside Our Hope’, 1997

This newspaper has been inspired by artist Esther Johnson’s film a ROLE to PLAY and the community she worked with during the film’s production. Part of the arts project Work (see back page), the film was made in direct response to rising unemployment and the use of zero-hours contracts across the UK. Johnson worked with Bolsover Reading Group members and

Freedom Community Project food bank users, volunteers and staff, to explore the realities and struggles of contemporary working life in post-industrial Bolsover, a Derbyshire constituency where coal was once king.

The film experiments with methods of co-creation, radical theatre and oral testimony. The participants’ own storytelling is privileged over the question–answer scenario of traditional documentary. The film’s title echoes this participatory process, and the roles everyone takes in their working and nonworking lives.

I read a book one day and my whole life was changed.

In the film we hear the lived experiences and dreams of town residents, including ex-miner, trade unionist and MP for Bolsover (1970–2019) Dennis Skinner; Serena, a performing arts student; Stephen, a food bank volunteer/ employee and reading group member; Jeanette, a retired primary school teacher and now adult reading group teacher; and Adie, a freelance tattoo apprentice and zero-hours employee.

The voices in this newspaper belong to members of Bolsover Reading Group and participants in the creation of a ROLE to PLAY. blanchepictures.com/a-role-to-play workprojects.org.uk/a-role-to-play

Themes include positive/negative work experiences, volunteering, lack of work, zero-hours contracts, unemployment, and the barriers that low reading and writing skills have in gaining work.

Orhan Pamuk b.1952

Voices from a ROLE to PLAY Jeanette

I’ve worked at McDonald’s, I’ve worked on building sites, I’ve been a spray painter, a gardener, a tattooist, a slaughterhouse man, and a warehouse assistant. There are jobs, but conditions are poor. Twelve-hour shifts: four on, four off, then nothing.  The machine I worked [at the warehouse] were twelve metres up in air. Up in the air, people look this small.  I wondered what my lass was doing. She was always in my mind. I had photos of all three kids on my vehicle so they were always watching me. When you’ve got a family, a home, you’ve got overheads, and you haven’t got enough money coming in to go out, that’s when it starts getting really, really, really bad. I suppose if I was in a union I would never had been laid off for two weeks and then not given my job back.

My dad was awful. We went through all sorts of traumas with him. I had to get a job as soon as I could. I had to earn money to keep him in beer and fags. I was on my own, living in a bedsit at 16. I went to youth employment and they said ‘We’ve got nursing, the army, or a job at the local public library.’ So I went for the library. Some things are in you from the start aren’t they? I’ve always had a love of books. They’re old friends. And I loved reading and wanted to teach kids to read.

Adie

Dennis

When I was a union man I had a job in the pit. I weren’t skiving on the pit tar. Even when I was president of the Derbyshire NUM I worked in the pit. 1970. I got elected, and at six o’clock the day after, I went to work [at the pit]. I didn’t have two ha’pennies to rub together. I hadn’t got a bank account. I hadn’t got a car. We hadn’t any money. I went to work because I didn’t know when I was going to get paid in Parliament. I worked in an industry where everybody’s life depended on everybody else. If you didn’t go to work you didn’t get paid.

You got all these people standing in line. Everyone filling in their forms. I couldn’t fill mine in very well. But I was chosen. My friend said he knew I could do the job. One lad of 17, it were his first job. He said, ‘I can’t do this, it’s too hard.’ I said, ‘Just stick with it. It’s perseverance, ’cause if you give up now, you’re going to keep on giving up on things for the rest of your life.’

I’d been a carer for my mum since the age of 14, but I’d helped her out before then. I needed a change. Fed up of being in the shadows, a thought persisted: ‘I want people to know who I am. I want them to see me as me. I want this to happen.’ Sitting in my room, I was scared; I had no idea where to begin. Would anybody support me? Would anybody offer to help me? Would anybody even care? Anxiety and mental health have always been a struggle for me. I was battling with my inner self. Was I making the right decision? My grades weren’t good. I’d made my decision that same night: I wanted to try and get into the college. Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.

Stephen

Serena

Frederick Douglass c.1817–1895

Thoughts from the reading group

Meeting every Tuesday since 2013, Bolsover Reading Group is a volunteer-led adult literacy class that runs out of the Freedom Community Project. Class members and tutors share their thoughts on what the reading group means to them. bolsoverreadinggroup.weebly.com

I love to come to reading class and look forward to it each week. The people are all nice and if you are worried everyone is supportive and helpful. We play games that involve reading and writing. We have cups of tea and biscuits and sometimes cake when Jeanette bakes. We’ve had outings to places such as Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Bolsover Castle.

Linda The class helps me with my reading and spelling. I enjoy the games and have a good laugh. Everyone is so friendly and supportive. I’ve made new friends and gone on trips. This has all given me more confidence.

I am very happy that my reading is improving. And I am feeling more confident to read in bigger groups. With Esther we have made books, written poems and gone on trips. I organize the tea for everyone in the break.

Declan I love coming to reading group as we have such a close connection. It is very rewarding to see people progress and gain confidence. It was interesting to hear about people’s work experiences and how these have affected them. My life has been given a purpose after retirement and I feel close to the group who understand each other.

Liz After 34 years’ teaching the last thing I wanted was more teaching! But I said I’d help and quickly realized I had made the right decision. The tutors are kind, caring and patient and offer so much of themselves to those they support. The people we teach each have amazing back stories. Courageously they join us, telling strangers how they want so much to improve their reading and writing. For me such people deserve a medal of the highest order. I count my inclusion in the reading group to be a great blessing.

Dave

Jane I love reading group on Tuesday mornings. We have a good laugh, we chat, and we help each other with problems. We are all friends and really appreciate the tutors. I have good feelings about the group and it makes me happy.

Stephen I love coming to reading group – it’s relaxed and the people are lovely. They really appreciate the tutors. All the students have come on in leaps and bounds. I love Tuesday mornings, we are all friends and we have a laugh. I leave feeling that I have really helped.

At 18 I was a carer for my dad a long time, my mum had left him. I got payment for looking after dad. At 18 I would have liked to have had another job. The rest of my family would not care for him. I don’t think I was getting enough money for what I was doing. I lost my mum in 2018. She was 72 when she died. Now, aged 50, I live on my own. I would like a job and am on a course with Citizens Advice. I feel like the reading class has benefited me. It has given me confidence and friends. Working with Esther was interesting and helped me realise what valuable work I had done caring for my parents.

Eileen It was very difficult going to the class and admitting to other people about me reading. However, people are very friendly and this gives me confidence.

Ian Every Tuesday I wake up thinking: ‘Great, it’s reading group today’. I love it. I love doing the preparation, matching the learning to each student’s needs. The progress made by students is staggering. The students and tutors are the most wonderful, supportive group of people you could ever wish to meet, and we are famed for our laughter!

Jeanette

Janet Some books leave us free and some books make us free.

Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803–1882

Exercises

Wordsearch: The Song of the Wage-Slave (see next spread)

L A N D H U M A S S H A X O T C F E E I Z O N U R R U Q T J L R M R A A T H W R O E I E E F U N C Y A B N C O T R V O R K D G C H B E L A W A D E F E N D S N I A M E R E P O H

WAGE TRADER LAND JOB CRAFT ORE RICH ETERNAL REMAINS LAW DEFEND HOPE HOME SILENCE MASS FEE EARTH FUTURE NOW MARCH

Story consequences 1. Each person in the group has a sheet of paper, and writes ‘Once upon a time’ at the top. 2. ‘Once upon a time’ is then folded over and passed to the next person. 3. The next person then writes the first sentence of their story and folds the paper over again, ensuring the last word is visible so that the next person is able to add another sentence and then fold the paper again. 4. This process is repeated until the sheet is full. 5. Unfold the paper and you have a story written by the group.

and work

My life’s work When I was two I spilled boiling water over myself, and I did not really speak until I was eleven. At infant school I found it hard, but no one gave me any support, so I was bored. Not surprisingly I became a ‘bad lad’. My punishment was to sit me on a seven-foot-high table. At junior school I was made to sit at the back of the class with nothing to do, so I was always running away and being fetched back. At secondary school I was picked on and bullied. I was very good at art, craft, and cookery. I missed a lot of school so I just went and did bits of farm work or casual laboring for a builder. When I left school I worked in a chicken factory, then as a farm hand. I looked after 6,000 pigs for £19 a week. There was a lot of cruelty to the animals. After 18 months I got another job but they went out of business. I always got a job, because if you were on the dole employers thought you were workshy and unreliable. Finally I went to work for the council, where I stayed until I retired.

Ian What we were

Work

Mini skirts High boots Floppy hats Midi skirts

My first job was collecting empty glasses when I was seven at the Miners’ Welfare Social Club in return for sweets. At eight I looked after an old lady. Later I worked in a chicken factory and then at Mecca bingo. My former husband knocked my confidence and it’s hard being in a crowd. I have panic attacks and anxiety, but I feel comfortable volunteering at the Freedom café, where people know me.

How times have changed! We’ve all got older I used to be shy But now I am bolder I used to wear a gypsy skirt And go out on the town But now I like to sit at home Watching TV and Not wearing a frown

Pat

Eileen Change

Politics

Change is great But change is hard too! Change is good having children It is good when you see their eyes open.

The government talks rubbish. I want to go to Parliament And be a politician. High tax on football players, High tax on fatty foods. Give money for The NHS, The police and fire service. Power!

Change can hurt, But it can be wonderful too. Having children can change your life … For better and worse!

Declan

Children can break your heart But I wouldn’t change my life for anything … They are my life, I need them Like you need air.

Flash fiction Write a narrative in 25 words or less.

Letter

We love them No matter what.

Stephen

Write a letter to your future self. How many years into the future? Write a letter to your younger self. How many years into the past?

I intend to put up with nothing that I can put down.

Edgar Allan Poe 1809–1849

BRUSH UP YOUR ENGLISH I take it you already know Of tough and bough and cough and dough? Others may stumble, but not you On hiccough, thorough, slough and through? Well done! And now you wish, perhaps To learn of less familiar traps? Beware of heard, a dreadful word That looks like beard and sounds like bird, And dead: it’s said like bed, not bead; For goodness sake don’t call it deed! Watch out for meat and great and threat, (They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.) A moth is not a moth in mother, Nor both in bother, broth in brother. And here is not a match for there. Nor dear and fear for bear and pear, And then there’s dose and rose and lose – Just look them up – and goose and choose. And cork and work and card and ward, And font and front and word and sword. And do and go, then thwart and cart. Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start! A dreadful language? Why, man alive! I’d learned to talk it when I was five, And yet to write it, the more I tried, I hadn’t learned it at sixty-five!

T S Watt, 1954

Teaching aids courtesy of Jeanette Haigh

Language is wine upon the lips.

Virginia Woolf 1882–1941

The Song of the Wage-Slave The land it is the landlord’s, The trader’s is the sea, The ore the usurer’s coffer fills – But what remains for me? The engine whirls for master’s craft; The steel shines to defend, With labor’s arms, what labor raised, For labor’s foe to spend. The camp, the pulpit, and the law For rich men’s sons are free; Theirs, theirs the learning, art, and arms – But what remains for me? The coming hope, the future day, When wrong to right shall bow, And hearts that have the courage, man, To make that future now. I pay for all their learning, I toil for all their ease; They render back, in coin for coin, Want, ignorance, disease: Toil, toil – and then a cheerless home, Where hungry passions cross; Eternal gain to them that give To me eternal loss! The hour of leisured happiness The rich alone may see; The playful child, the smiling wife – But what remains for me? They render back, those rich men, A pauper’s niggard fee, Mayhap a prison – then a grave, And think they are quits with me; But not a fond wife’s heart that breaks, A poor man’s child that dies, We score not on our hollow cheeks And in our sunken eyes; We read it there, where’er we meet, And as the sun we see, Each asks, “The rich have got the earth, And what remains for me?” We bear the wrong in silence, We store it in our brain; They think us dull, they think us dead, But we shall rise again: A trumpet through the lands will ring; A heaving through the mass; A trampling through their palaces Until they break like glass: We’ll cease to weep by cherished graves, From lonely homes we’ll flee; And still, as rolls our million march, Its watchword brave shall be – The coming hope, the future day, When wrong to right shall bow, And hearts that have the courage, man, To make that future now.

Ernest Charles Jones 1819–1869 first published in The International Socialist, 17 March 1917

Reading brings us unknown friends.

Working in the pit

My dad was a militant sort of trade unionist. Wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer from the manager. They know people like my dad would not fit in line with management. So he was blacklisted from nearly every pit in the area. For years he wasn’t allowed to work in the pits after the ’29 recession. He only got a job when he was needed as war was coming. Here, it’s mainly pit sites. Pleasley is the former slag heaps. Some turned into industrial estates. So the land isn’t deserted. When you pass Bolsover on the motorway you’ll see the tops of the sheds, and you think, ‘Yeah, there’s another one being built.’ And a lot of people go into those big sheds, but sadly most of them are non-union. It’s a scandal. 3,000-odd workers on zero-hours contracts. Coalite is going to be built on. Creswell and Whitwell, and Glapwell pit where I worked, are all built on. Pleasley is the odd one out. It’s a country park. Has the only headstocks left in Derbyshire. The American tourists come and take photos of them. It’s a real fairy story. Working down a coal mine was nigh on slavery in the old days. There wasn’t much mechanization when I went in 1949. So everything was heavy lifting. With mechinization in ’49, everybody was in the union. We worked with folk from Lithuania, Poland. We all got the same wages but had to join the NUM. That was part of the deal. They were called ‘displaced persons’ at the end of the war. There were millions of them roaming about Europe at the time. Their countries had been flattened. And they worked in every pit throughout Britain. 700 pits. One of them became president of Whitwell pit. The son of a Lithuanian displaced person. He climbed the pit shaft after the ’84 strike. I was asked to talk him down, but I took him sandwiches to keep him up there. I said, ‘Here you are Terry, here’s some sandwiches, kid.’ As sure as night follows day, we became members of the union when down the pit. Us, the Poles, and the Lithuanians and everybody else. And we’re all paid the same money for the same kind of work. I’d like to see that all over again. But sadly it’s not true. Not true in Bolsover, and not true elsewhere. I’d like to see people not on zero-hours contracts, but being part of a union and being able to negotiate wages properly. If that happened, it would almost be like Nirvana.

extract from interview with Dennis Skinner recorded by Esther Johnson at Bolsover Library, 2018

Honoré de Balzac 1799–1850

I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn’t be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wo

Having an account at The Reading Bank has also helped me to open another account at the bank next door, The Writing Bank; this bank has given me words free of charge to make poems with, and create tales with, and make sense of the world around me with. Reading leads to writing in the same way that sunset leads to sunrise and Bolsover leads to Poolsbrook.

I’m lucky because I’ve had an account at The Reading Bank for years and years and that account has helped me to travel to places I never thought I’d visit, and meet people I never thought I’d get to know, all from the comfort of my settee.

We should all have access to The Reading Bank; it’s one of my favourite banks because it never refuses you a loan, you can never be overdrawn, and the bank manager is always keen to tell you stories.

Here are the words, stacked high in The Reading Bank; there are shelves full of them, baskets bulging with them. Here’s a tottering pile of words that might fall over if you pull one out clumsily, and here’s a bargain bin of words that are demanding to be used.

HERE ARE THE WORDS IN THE READING BANK

onderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.

Roald Dahl 1916–1990

www.uktouring.org.uk/ian-mcmillan @IMcMillan

Ian McMillan

Written for this newspaper by poet and broadcaster

Welcome to The Reading Bank; welcome to The Writing Bank. Come in, sit down, and let’s all begin to spend the endless currency of words.

I want to see a world where we’ve all got accounts in these two banks; where we’re all readers and we’re all writers because our stories, whoever we are, are worth telling and other peoples’ stories, whoever they are, are worth reading.

I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have n

I were a janitor. I could clean for more than twelve hours. Either acid, bleach, chemicals, general cleaning, or hoovering. They gave me a list I memorized. I learnt the warning signs and a guy helped me if I got stuck with the reading. I was my own boss and didn’t need to be in a set place

Jobs have come and gone. I’ve just got on with it. One job I had to sort trays out of millions of screws. All day just doing that. That was the most boring job. But the hardest thing is getting the job in the first place.

I joined the TA. They were kind and helped me with reading and writing. But the TA was hard. It weren’t the fitness or the discipline.It were that you could get called out at any time and get sent away. And you couldn’t say ‘no’. I left the TA when I was 21. We had Declan then.

I had a paper round when I was 16. But I wanted to join the army. I needed my parents’ permission to join. Mum signed, dad wouldn’t. He said I was too thick, and would get shot. I tried again when I was 18, but failed.

I were about eleven. My dad stopped my pocket money. So I got a job.

I lived in my bedroom a lot. I didn’t like going downstairs.

EVERYONE NEEDS TO START SOMEWHERE

not an excellent library.

Jane Austen 1775–1817

Bolsover resident · Volunteer and worker at Freedom Community Project · Bolsover Reading Group member

Stephen Cotton

We literally lost everything. No money. No gas. No electric. Someone helped us when we needed help most. It was out of their own pockets and they didn’t want anything in return. I’ve wanted to give back ever since. I thought if somebody can do that, I can do it. I volunteer every week at the food bank, and I’ve now got a ten-hour job because of it.

I went into the pub one week and someone said, ‘What you doing in here? You don’t work. How can you come in here?’. ‘I’ve been volunteering for six years.’ He said, ‘That isn’t work – you’re scrounging.’ But I work ten hours now. I went back in with my first wage and this guy said the same thing. I said, ‘I am working, and volunteering, so you’ve got no need to pull me down.’ I stuck up for myself. Everyone needs to start somewhere.

at one time.

Reading group visits

Bolsover Castle, April 2019

Yorkshire Sculpture Park, July 2019

Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Houses of Parliament, October 2018

Yorkshire Sculpture Park

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.

Houses of Parliament

W. Somerset Maughamâ&#x20AC;&#x201A; 1874â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1965

erutainim ni gnikam kooB fold 35

. cut out along outer line

13 fold

cut along this line

fold 35

See next spread for instructions

13 fold

fold 35

13 fold

The book should be a ball of light in one’s hand.

Ezra Pound 1885–1972

Caring

Declan

fold 35

Linda

When I was young I shopped and cleaned And helped my grandma in-between. She bought me iced gems when I was good, Oh what a treat, such lovely food. I played outside, was pushed about, In wheelbarrows, then I was tipped out. I sang and danced, pretended to be A perfomer on a stage for you to see. I played imaginary games Like doctors and nurses, cafés and house. I had such fun and messed about. Oh happy days. I miss them now.

Chambermaid

I have been a carer all my life. My own life has been on hold. I would not have it any other way. Now is my turn to shine.

Eileen

13 fold

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.

Getting older is brilliant Now I can drink beer! Getting older is brilliant, Now I can leave the nest! Getting older is brilliant, Now I can sign forms and learn to drive! Getting older is brilliant, Now I can wear what I want! Getting older is brilliant, But I miss being able to tell the innocent truth.

back cover

telephone 0300 30 20 334 email bolsover.readinggroup@gmail.com www.bolsoverreadinggroup.weebly.com

Please contact us if you would like to join our Tuesday morning group

Bolsover Reading Group Freedom Community Project

Get in touch – everybody is welcome

Transformation

Make the bed and clean the room. Lay the tray with coffee and tea. We all had a laugh, no time for gloom.

Fifteen rooms a day to clean. No time to shirk! Goodness this is hard work!

Linda

When I Was Young

front cover

Poetry by members of Bolsover Reading Group

Class Work

. cut out along outer line fold 35

My Working Life

I’ve had a busy working life, in nurseries, shops, two factories and a nursing home.

Now I am still busy at home, caring for children and dogs. With still no time for myself.

Catherine

A cupboard left in the garden Longing for a new life Abandoned to the elements Waiting to return to the earth. Then Nails, Screws, Hammer, Paint, Saw, Glue. Brought back to life. What stories it could tell. This old tea cupboard Now standing proud Holding books New life for our class.

Ian

Being 18

Book making in miniature

fold 35 13 fold

13 fold

Harper Lee 1926–2016

Book making in miniature: instructions

Hard work Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.

Studs Terkel 1912–2008

Work experiences A couple of times I went to work [at a distribution warehouse] and I were doing twelve-hour shifts. When it got to my next shift I got sent straight back home, ’cause there were no work. It’s also about respect: that I’ve been in work since I was 16 [and] I’ve only ever had two years out of work, you know what I mean? Just respect that I know what I’m doing. I’m not stupid. I got offered the world when I were there, but got nothing at the end of it.

cut out the book

Adie

fold the sheet in half widthways, then cut a slit along the dashed line

Jeanette

Barriers to work experienced by reading group members • Being unable to read • Caring for my parents • Illness

• Awful boss • Disability • Places shutting down

Schooldays were painful. I was put down and left to pick up skills by myself. I conquered my biggest fear joining the reading group.

Ian

• Being unable to drive • No public transport • Physical abuse

I was not able to read, which has held me back. I’ve enjoyed voluntary work in a charity shop. I had a job interview in a local warehouse but it was cancelled and they never got back to me. The reading group has given me confidence and I hope to do Entry Level 2 in English at college, to help me with spelling.

• Domestic abuse • Bullying • Few jobs available

As a child I went to a special school. My reading and writing wasn’t very good and I wasn’t helped as much as I could have been. Everybody’s got to start somewhere.

Stephen

Declan

unfold the sheet again, then fold it lengthways

Teacher training college was brilliant. Over half the people there have been to work before, and that made such a difference. The lectures and everything were really ‘up there’, you know, and they were super. I think everybody should have to work before they go to college. And for teaching, if you’ve only been to school, college, and back into school, what use are you? You’ve no idea of the world. Well, you’ve got to have understanding and empathy.

Hierarchy of needs Many people have encountered barriers to learning, for all sorts of reasons. ‘Maslow’s Hierachy of Needs’, below, is a theory in psychology proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1942 paper ‘A Theory of Human Motivation’. Before individuals meet their full potential their basic needs must be met.

make two further vertical folds

Selfactualization achieving full potential, including creative activities

Self-fulfilment needs

Esteem needs prestige, feeling of accomplishment Psychological needs Belongingness and love needs intimate relationships, friends Safety needs security, safety using the vertical folds as the book’s spine, fold the pages over

I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.

Basic needs Physiological needs food, water, warmth, rest

Jorge Luis Borges 1899–1986

Esther Johnson (MA Royal College of Art) works at the intersection of artist moving image and documentary. Her poetic portraits focus on alternative social histories and the relationship between history, memory and storytelling. She is particularly interested in neglected and marginal stories that may otherwise remain hidden or ignored. Recurring themes include heritage, tradition, folklore, regeneration, and exploration of architectural vernaculars and the inhabited environment. Work has exhibited internationally in more than 40 countries, and has also featured on television and radio. Johnson is former recipient of the prestigious Philip Leverhulme Research Prize in Performing & Visual Arts, and is Professor of Film and Media Arts in the Art, Design and Media Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University.

blanchepictures.com

Jeanette Haigh founded the Bolsover Reading Group, an adult literacy group, in 2013. Whilst a volunteer at the Freedom Community Project café Jeanette was approached by a food-bank user distraught that his local FE college reading class had shut down. With experience as a primary school teacher, and a passion for reading, Jeanette met with the Freedom Project Director that same day to set up a class, and the rest is history.

bolsoverreadinggroup.weebly.com @Bolsover-Reading-group Class Work Tribune and a ROLE to PLAY were created for Work, an arts project commissioning artists to make films that explore ideas and realities of what ‘work’ means for the way we live today. Work is a collaboration between five Midlands arts organizations: Animate Projects, Fermynwoods Contemporary Art, Junction Arts, QUAD, and Vivid Projects. Each organization worked with an artist, helping them engage workers in the process of making their film. The artists are Dryden Goodwin, Jenny Holt, Esther Johnson, and Adam Lewis Jacob. They made their films in Birmingham, Bolsover, Derby, and Thrapston. Work is supported by Jerwood Arts and using public funding by Arts Council England.

Freedom Community Project is a charity that was set up in 2008 to support people who are struggling with poverty in Bolsover. Since then the project has grown to cover the North East Midlands and Yorkshire with 10 support centres. The organization has a small team of staff and volunteers to deliver support across the area.

fcgroup.org.uk

workprojects.org.uk Esther Johnson partnered with Junction Arts for Work. Junction Arts helps communities facing social barriers such as poverty, poor health, and low aspirations to create a better future through the arts. Their festivals, workshops, and events give people the opportunity to be creative, learn new skills and build stronger communities. They are committed to working with communities to co-create magical and memorable arts experiences that empower people, improve wellbeing and inspire change.

Many people have kindly given their time and support to this project. Esther Johnson would especially like to thank Abigail Addison (Animate Projects), Bolsover Castle and English Heritage, Jaimie Boxx, Jemma Burton (Junction Arts), Shealeigh Clark, Claire, Declan and Stephen Cotton, Adrian Drury, Elizabeth Goodwin, Dominic Green, Bernard and Jeanette Haigh, Linda and Serena Hammond, Ian, Barbara North, Mark North (Freedom Community Project), Old Bolsover Town Council, Darryl Peat, John Platts, Jane Rowley, Dennis Skinner, Amy Smith (Junction Arts), Eileen Stray, Adam Taylor, Gary Thomas (Animate Projects), Emily Tubb, Catherine Turner, Holly Turpin (Animate Projects), Dave Wilson, and Janet Woodhead.

junctionarts.org/ community-projects/work

Edited by Esther Johnson All photographs by Esther Johnson Designed by Christopher Wilson at Oberphones Printed by Newspaper Club © 2020 Esther Johnson blanchepictures.com @blanchepictures @blanche_pictures

There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away.

This newspaper has been kindly supported by Animate Projects as part of Work, and funded by Jerwood Arts and Arts Council England

Emily Dickinson 1830–1886