Books for factory workers

Maureen Twose of Cornwall Libraries (who has been a staunch supporter of the project from the start) emails with good news. Callington is a small town in north Cornwall,near a food processing factory Ginsters, which employs a large number of workers from overseas.
She writes:

"Callington Library is negotiating a small satellite library in Ginsters that will be accessible to all, including the night shift. It will include a small number of foreign language books.

Also, we plan a European reading promotion later in the year (European authors translated into English). It all helps to bring down barriers and hopefully unite us."

Books for the night shift sounds a great idea.

Ewa's cheesecake recipe

This has been requested several times since our workshop at Truro Library in February. It is surprising that culinary vocab is so challenging! Folding in! Crumbling! Quite a lot of technical terms about rather subtle techniques. But here it is. It is extremely good.


BLACK AND WHITE CHEESCAKE
by Ewa Cimochowska

Cake:
- 0.9lb/400g of flour
- 6 tablespoons of sugar
- 3 teaspoons of vanilla flavouring
- 0.45 lb/200g  of butter 
-  teaspoon of baking powder
- 1 tablespoon of cocoa
- 2 tablespoons of sour cream 
cheese mixture :
- 2.2 lb/1 kg of Quark soft cheese
- 1.5 cup of sugar
- 4 tablespoons of melted butter
- 5 eggs ( yolks and whites separetly )
- 1 tablespoon of custard powder

Preparing a baking form: Butter the tin. Then dust the entire buttered surface with fine, dry bread crumbs (the kind you can buy at the supermarket or you can make them yourself) by turning the tin on its side and slowly rotating it. Invert the tin and shake out excess crumbs.


Mix cake ingredients together with your hands until well blended . Form into two balls and put into the refrigerator for half an hour. During this time prepare cheese mixture. Mix the egg yolks with sugar. Add cheese, melted butter and custard powder. Beat (on low to to low-medium speed) thoroughly, until completely smooth. Beat egg whites until stiff. Fold into the cheese mixture.   (You can also add a few raisins, if you wish.)


Crumble one of the dark cake balls coarsely into the baking form and spread evenly to create a base for your cake. Pour cheese mixture and crumble another dark ball of cake on the top. You can gently press the top dark cake into the cheese mixture so that they mix a little.


Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4 . Put the cheesecake in the centre of the oven and bake for about an hour. The cheesecake is done when the middle layer is firm.  Let it cool completely on rack. It can be served after two or three hours, but ideally is left until the next day.

Last workshop of the week and pickers on a spring evening

Our last workshop of the week  - at Penryn College. 15 workshops this week with nearly 2,000 students. Waldek and Ewa reckon that we have 'reached' one in two students i.e. really made them question their attitudes. We review the week in the cafe at Asda, Penryn...and plan workshops and strategies for after Easter. Ewa is keen to get going again! Though have been surprised at the levels of hostility towards migrant workers and lack of knowledge of 1. the work they do 2. their importance in the local economy.
Daffodils are coming out fast now - though it's cold. Mother's Day is fast approaching. Pass a field almost covered with pickers.

Torpoint Community College and a day of workshops

 

At Torpoint Community College all day, where we deliver ten workshops in all - two teams working simultaneously. It's a long drive from west Cornwall. Plymouth and the dockyards are visible across the river. Lin Martin, who has invited us, describes it as a monocultural area, despite the proximity of the city. We work with groups of year 7 and year 8 students during the day. This is the Year 7 classroom.

Lots of interesting - and eye-opening attitudes. What are migrant workers? What do they do? We encounter the kind of remarks that we've heard elsewhere: 'They're here taking our jobs.'  'They're here because it's safer than in their own country'.  Etc.

One thing that surprises me greatly - out of the 100 or so students that I work with during the day, only one recognises a photo of St Michael's Mount. The teacher tells us that the children don't tend to travel - they don't know Cornwall.  I've heard similar things elsewhere, but not paid too much attention. But this really strikes me today.

Everyone - without exception - is delighted to meet Valdek, who I am working with.  One boy asks - rather tentatively - if Valdek knows K***. We ask who K*** is. We are told he is a Polish boy who had to leave the school because of bullying. He liked apple juice and the boy tells us people teased him and squirted apple juice in his face.  Valdek says he doesn't know him ....

We look at items brought to Cornwall by migrant workers from Portugal ....

 

Then Waldek shows a selection of things he brought with him to this country. A sandwich box (he always carries a packed lunch)

A Terry Pratchett book - this caused mild amazement.

 

His lucky elephant - which needs to point to the window when he takes exams and tests.

And most exciting of all... a CD of Waldek's band. It turns out that he is an extremely accomplished saxophonist. We just have time to play one of the tracks. Everyone is rivetted. And several of the boys shake Waldek's hand and thank him as they leave.

 

 

The road home borders the river. 

St Austell, a brief stop at St Clement then stunning suitcases at Richard Lander

An early start to the day with a workshop at Cornwall College St Austell - with Art degree students and ESOL learners. An interesting discussion on treasured possessions. Jewellery figured high on many people's lists.

Then a pause before the next workshop. By the river at St Clement, just outside Truro - near Malpas, where Tristan carried Iseult across the ford in Arthurian legend. Had not realised that the channels in the mud could be so deep. (An important journey for Iseult - an elaborate trick that saved her life.)

In the churchyard at St Clement - a standing stone dating from around 600 AD with a Roman inscription. Its history unclear.









Plenty of clarity though at Richard Lander School,  Truro, with the class of very motivated and engaged children we met two weeks ago. A variety of excellent suitcases that they have created with their journeys.

Emily Irwin has drawn her journey eight years ago, from Maidenhead to Cornwall. She's now 14.

Miles Cooper has drawn a memorable journey to Primary School some years ago in a snowstorm, when his intrepid father had a minor accident and hit the bank. He found his sister and brother had built two snowmen by the time he got home.

 

Megan Mason has drawn a journey of dreams - her planned career and passage through life.

Rebecca Water, 14, drew a very delicate map with key symbols in her life - a palm tree on the left from the Caribbean island where her mother was born. The London Eye - top right (she was born in London).

Rihana Davey, 13, drew all the places that have been significant in her life so far - from the maternity wing where she was born, to the play group she attended, to her home and school now...

The class hard at work, imagining themselves migrant workers far from home, and writing postcards home. A very rewarding place to work - we are returning after Easter to do some assemblies.

An icy start to the day but an exhilarating workshop

A cold start - takes a while to scrape the frost off the car windows. And very icy in the valley.
But a great workshop at Helston School.

120 Year 11 students who are engaged, ask questions and really help take the project forward.
Again, am quite moved by the notion that this was where I went to school - and in one sense set off in life.

Waldek comes along to support Ewa in questiontime. He is still working at the medical supplies factory in Newquay, that she has now left.
And  - how heartening is this - more than one student in the Evaluation form said 'It changed the way I thought about migrant workers'.
Later a meeting at Pool with Ola Paluch, to think of ways of working with children there, whose parents are migrant workers.

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.