Workshops at the Roseland

A beautiful sunny morning - it feels like spring, though there has been a bit of a frost overnight.
Pass daffodil fields on the way up to St Austell... yellow fields all over west Cornwall. A bad sign: the crop in once sense has failed (to make its way to the shops). It's because weather earlier in the month, and at the end of February, was unseasonably warm.

Two groups of around 60 at the school: some very lively and interesting discussions with Irina, the migrant worker from the Ukraine who has joined us.

Journeys made to and from Newquay...

Today's workshops are in Treviglas School, Newquay. It's the first day back after Half Term - a good day to be talking about journeys. Had anyone been away on holiday?

Vadim Hothova, from Southern England Farms, is here to help. Ewa Cimochowska has had to go back to Poland, with her husband Waldek, as her mother has had a stroke. We miss her - but Vadim steps bravely into the breach.

We're working with Year 9 students, as we have done elsewhere. This is a good and interesting cohort to work with. There are links to be made with other areas of the Curriculum. The classes we worked with today were going on to learn about the former Soviet Union, and Stalingrad, in history.
In some of the classes we spoke to, students did not quite know what the Soviet Union was - or had been.
It was relevant. Vadim explained how he, a Latvian, had a Russian heritage and had experienced difficulties at University because his professor - he felt - had made things difficult for Russians.

But first, we lay the groundwork for discussions. We tell the classes how we have been working elsewhere. Everywhere, people's responses have been different. In this school, in each of the three classes we work with, there are children whose parents have moved to Cornwall from overseas. We only realise this when they fill in answers to our initial questionnaire.... Have you ever made a journey? Have you ever lived in a country where you don't speak the language?
It's a school with a strongly 60s feel. A very familiar look to the place. Palm trees included. As a quick look at photos of Helston and Penair will reveal...

But all students are different. We handed out our questionnaire at the start. And most students found the last question the toughest: What is the most difficult thing you have ever done?
The answers were quite touching. A few students said living through their parents splitting up. Or facing up to the death of a grandparent.
But a surprising number said their most difficult experience - in life so far - involved leaving friends behind, and moving to a new place to start a new life.
This, of course, is exactly what Vadim had done.
We talked about his experience. He told us how it had been. In Latvia, he had studied medicine. He had been National Junior Ballroom Dancing Champion. But things had been tough. Sometimes he had worked 22 hours a day to make ends meet. I couldn't imagine how anyone could do that. What about 'night', and sleeping?
But apparently you can do that if you have two jobs, and sleep during your breaks at both. You can sleep for 20 minutes intervals during this time - if you are used to it.
But, clearly, it was not a life-style that could be sustained for long. Vadim moved to the UK. He worked on a flower farm in Cornwall before moving to SEF, where he works now. SEF, one of the UK's largest vegetable producers, is based near Leedstown. They grow cauliflower, cabbage, courgettes and spring greens on farms all over the county.

We also talked about other workers who had moved to Cornwall from overseas. The Portuguese, for example, who live in the Bodmin area and work at local meat processing factories. We showed photography by Tom Pilston. For the first time, we have students who recognise some of the places featured - Bugle, Roche and Bodmin.  One student recognises Bugle as his uncle has a butcher's shop there.
We look at the Portuguese suitcase, filled with items that Portuguese workers brought to Cornwall when they moved here to find work. We play the usual game of trying to work out the reasons for certain items. (There are no Portuguese in the class, but people make informed guesses).

Then Vadim reveals what he brought with him when he came to the UK.  He explains: detective novels. Sherlock Holmes in Russian.

Plus - a medal. This is a medal for fishing: another area in which he excels. A Catholic icon, given to him by his grandmother and a plaster angel, given to him by his girlfriend. The angel is a good luck charm. He carries it with him, wherever he goes (even when working).
Everyone has a good luck charm, it seems.
It is pouring with rain when we drive back.
On the way home, buy some delphiniums from a stall by the side of the road. Seasons change and so do the flowers. The daffodils, naturally, are long gone.

A misty morning in west Cornwall

A misty morning in west Cornwall for our first workshop directly with children of migrant workers and their friends. Children at Pool School have volunteered, in pairs, to attend.
We arrive first thing and work all day. Games first to break the ice. A prize for the pair building the highest tower.

People are so creative that we award a further prize for the most imaginative structure - architecturally.

Then we get to work, making cases of metaphorical journeys. Children have come from Poland, Latvia and Lithuania to the school. Ewa Cimochowska, who has been helping throughout, has come along to help

People draw pictures from their journeys to this country. We discuss problems faced - difficulties and how were best tackled.   
We've brought our map suitcases to help things along - here pictured with new cases.

One of the aims of this workshop is to come up with an Action Plan, that might be used in this school and elsewhere to help new arrivals - children who don't speak English, find it tough to make friends and experience difficulties.
All sorts of suggestions are made...
It is a very lively team.

Who have their own ideas of how to brainstorm! They draw a picture of an imaginary Greek girl, called Luella, who arrives at the school.

Then imagine her thoughts and feelings.
A good day. Lunch in the school canteen and the first time for ages I have had chocolate sponge and custard.

Later call in at SEF (Southern England Farms) Leedstown, to see the four filmmakers whose film premiered at I Packed This Myself in Truro in March. We discuss future plans.

It's a fairly chilly early summer evening - slightly damp and the trees (just) in full leaf.

Drive past daffodils fields that are now being prepared for the next crop.

First workshop of the week and daffodils during the day

Daffodils, left by my mother, to start the day.

Then to Helston School  for the first of two workshops on consecutive days this week. An engaging discussion with 120 students (Y11), and Ewa. The teacher here - point of contact, Joe Stuteley - has said that students could have knee-jerk tabloid-fuelled attitudes towards migrant workers. And that is what we need to combat. We give a presentation at the start: they go off to their classrooms. Then return for a plenary discussion. No sign of prejudice - in particular. But it's quite an hard audience to warm up. The hall is freezing - perhaps that is part of the problem. Also on a personal level find it very strange to be back in this school. It was my old school.

Then talking to possible assistants for future workshops - in Helston and Camborne.

Heading home, quite late in the afternoon, am surprised to see the pickers still picking. It is already growing dark. 

But this is the peak season. Mother's Day - the absolute pinnacle of the daffodil season - isn't far off. So the tractors are still at work until well into the evening.

The pickers arrive - a new pastoral

Driving home on the Helston road, pass the same field, where the daffodils don't seem to have come along much. But a bus has arrived, bringing workers. The pickers are at work nearby. A 21st century pastoral landscape.

Cold snap - does the daffodil picking begin? And more planning

The Western Morning News runs its annual photo of a smiling migrant worker daffodil picker in west Cornwall. The picking has started at long last, after the cold snap, it says.
However later in the day, the local TV news has a farmer near Truro as saying that the picking is slow.  Hear from local farming contacts that the cold weather isn't a bad thing for the crop - it extends the selling period, which is a good thing for everyone.  The Western Morning News says that Cornwall produces a fifth of the world's daffodils.
Ewa and I for the second time in a week drink coffee in a Tesco's cafe, this time in Pool after a meeting at the school where our planned assembly was cancelled yesterday. The migrant worker members of staff are reflecting on how they feel the issues could be tackled in the school, where there are several children of migrant workers. The message of I Packed This Myself is the experience of migration - it's a challenging message to get across, particularly to an audience that isn't particularly receptive.
Buy my own local daffodils (from the Scillies) from a petrol station in Hayle. They are Soleil D'Or and - apparently - sailors approaching the islands could smell them long before land was sighted.

Trip to Pool police station, a Polish shop and the daffodil season on ice

To see Bev Faull, the recently appointed police officer dealing with migrant workers in the west of the county. She is inspiringly focussed and interested in the subject - consult her ahead of our assemblies at Pool School next week. There was a minor skirmish in the local press about migrant workers in the area last autumn - the West Briton carried a front page story. Again, so far from the truth that it is not worth repeating here but it can be read via the link. An example of local hysteria, whipped up against migrant workers. This was not the West Briton's finest hour. This front page story was based on quotes by un-named local residents. Not one named source.  In reality there were no evidenced examples of 'bad behaviour' by migrant workers and because of that the story inevitably died down, thankfully. Local hysteria has now turned against planned social housing for single mothers. Regrettably though, the West Briton story has left a legacy - people thinking that there is a 'migrant worker problem' in Pool.

Bev is based in a station that is not open to the public - it is almost romantically bleak ... What I imagine 'safe houses' in John Le Carre novels look like.

Then to the Polish shop in nearby Tuckingmill to stock up with goods for the Eastern European suitcase. It is a fusion of Cornish and Polish. A sign for pasties outside. And (how ironic!) West Briton advertising...

Fairy liquid, Polish sausage and Chupa Chups inside.

Then back home via the daffodil fields. The daffodil season has stalled because of the icy weather last month. Very much behind schedule. The big local flower grower, Nocton, has hundreds of workers poised to pick. But few flowers as yet. Crows are enjoying the empty fields.

Church centre stage - and meetings in London

Looking at photos of Tom Pilston's photoshoot in Cornwall for I Packed This Myself - see a church tower in the centre of the landscape, in the far distance. Just as in Stubb's landscape. But in our picture the church is a mere landmark, not a vibrant part of the community. Or is that just received thinking about our post-religious, secular society? In fact, this is Breage church, and Breage church and its extraordinary vicar Penny Stephens played a very important role in uncovering some of the exploitation of workers at a farm near Breage, a few years ago.
But ... back to London and meetings.
Meet artist Patrick Coleman and discuss including his extraordinary relic box - or reliquary (his father's tool box, crammed with artefacts from the past half century, showing his Irish family's efforts to settle in England. It bears very poignant witness to his relationship with his father.)
Then (after egg and cress sandwiches to keep going) another meeting, this time with a sensationally bright MA student on taking this and other project forwards. And finally a discussion with Kemal Ahson, Bridging Arts non-executive director, on ways of mapping - charting the experience of migration and creating new work to reflect this.