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Thursday 4 December 2008

Diary

Raffaella Barker moves back to London and enjoys a circus

My own capacity for earning needs pumping up, but I am always susceptible to distractions. Last week I found a very good new distraction when I was asked to become a writer-in-residence at a school for a scheme called ‘First Story’, a new charity endorsed by the Department of Children, Schools and Families and by the Royal Society for Literature. The charity was born less than a year ago, but is already placing eight writers at schools once a week through the academic year to foster creativity in teenagers, and the self-confidence writing can bring. A similar scheme in America, called 826 National, which was set up by the writer David Eggers, has been very successful. ‘First Story’ focuses on schools where more than 30 per cent of pupils are on free school meals. The scheme has been offered a platform at next year’s Hay on Wye Festival, and a week of residential creative writing at the Arvon Foundation. My own contribution so far has been simply to agree to it, but having been into various schools to teach on a one-off basis already I am excited, and I am sure that it is only a matter of time before there is a literary ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ show spawned by this project.

International talent had my jaw swinging at Gifford’s Circus in the Cotswolds where I was last weekend. In a tiny big top surrounded by a trail of painted wagons, this circus is one of the most picturesque and enchanting shows of the summer, and transported me to an idyll I wish had been my childhood. The theme is ‘Caravan’ and the mood is mysterious, at times mediaeval and utterly magical. Horses, falcons, and incredible feats of human bendiness and also poise are all dressed up in the most beguiling costumes. For an hour and a half I enjoyed the fantasy of what it would be like to be Nell Gifford, the beautiful founder and owner of this circus. Being Nell involves being poured into a fur-edged riding habit, performing advanced dressage on a golden horse and occasionally raising an arm for a falcon to land on her gloved hand. I’m sure she occasionally has to open her post, wash her hair and take her shoes to the menders, but in the sawdust-covered circus ring on a sunny evening in Gloucestershire, her world glows with enchantment. This week the circus is at Tackley, then Cheltenham and it is a blissful way to spend a day.

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