In our series of ‘Getting to Know’ storytellers who’ve more recently joined the directory I caught up with David Hughes. Here he tells us about his journey into storytelling and how he’s worked on bringing together his love of language and science, music, performance, and poetics. It’s a great read!
And there’s an opportunity to catch Táin Bó Cúailnge in December: https://scottishstorytellingcentre.online.red61.co.uk/event/913:5781/913:25182/
Anne Hunter
I was working with a group of young people referred through CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) in 2020. All the young folk were teenagers, referred to participate in an environmental education programme to support them with their mental health. Most of the young people had additional support needs like ADHD and autism. I had decided, prior to the session, that I would do some storytelling.
I had seen some storytelling before, I’d attended events at the Scottish International Storytelling Festival for a few years, attended a couple of workshops on rewilding stories and nature storytelling. I had subscribed to Martin Shaw’s online course and had read a few books on stories, but I did not realise truly that there was a whole world I was moving closer to.
I’ve always had a love of theatre, of performance and of language. I learned to play the piano when I was a teenager – my teacher was all about performing, learning the skills it took to play, to entertain, rather than just to recite classical pieces as they were written. He taught me how to riff on the piano, how to understand chord structures and piece something together with little practice. I still wouldn’t call myself a skilled musician by any stretch, but I can play, and playfulness is important. Musicality and playfulness are both skills I use in storytelling.
At school, when I was deciding on future career options, I remember being at something of a crossroads – I could follow my love for language and study French, or I could go down the route of science and study ecology. I picked ecology and was introduced to the scientific world – a world of logic and rationality. A world where you must say exactly what you mean, no fluffiness. One of my classes was in animal biology, we had a lab where we had to examine the jumping ability of grasshoppers. A grasshopper, like the one Mary Oliver watched eating sugar from her hand, with jaws that move back and forth instead of up and down. We had live grasshoppers in the lab, though we weren’t to celebrate their awe or philosophise about their beauty. They were there as our experimental objects. We measured their tibias then tickled their tush to make them leap, measuring the distance they could jump, collecting the measurements to process and write up in a scientific essay. I wrote my essay to capture the results and got absolutely raked over the coals for using ‘too much unnecessary descriptive language in describing the grasshopper.’
My writing style, my way of communication had to change. No poetic description, no emotion, no feeling, just hard facts. The grasshopper was not there for us to write poetry about, to question its existence beyond the lab. We had a subject-object relationship and that was all.
I’d decided on a story I would tell, practiced it, knew the beats and now had come the time to tell. The fire had been lit, marshmallows consumed, the tang of woodsmoke was in the air. However, the young people could not sit still. They were running around, arguing with each other, hitting trees with sticks – all the usual fun stuff sugared up teens like to do. I remember thinking ‘a story is absolutely not going to work here, no one is going to listen.’
Story can blast you out of logos and into mythos. It offers a wild response to questions. It goes where science dare not. I’d seen Dougie Mackay telling stories around a campfire as part of an Art of Mentoring gathering in Falkland in Fife in 2019. This was one of my first proper experiences of ‘hearthside’ oral storytelling. I lingered on the edge, watching him in wonder. He told the story of the Salmon of Wisdom. I swear this was the first time I heard this story, yet it felt so strangely familiar, like I’d heard it hundreds of times before. Maybe he was speaking to the ancient one that lives within each of us. I think good stories can do that.
My inner critic was strong. ‘Just let the young folk play, they’ll never listen to a story.’ I bit down on my tongue and took a breath. Ignore that voice, give it a go.
‘Right folks, gather in, I’ve got a story to tell you.’
Reluctantly, they came, shuffled towards the fire, grumbling about the smoke being in their eyes, about the audacity of having to sit on the cold ground.
I began the story. It wasn’t scripted, it was there, in my mind, playing out live as I saw it. I could see it in the minds of the young folk too. Their little mouths hung open, they asked questions, we added things together and as a group, around the fire, we made the story anew. It was pure magic.
This was the first time I ‘did’ storytelling. It unlocked something in me, I saw the effect that the simple act of telling a story can have on people. No technology, no props, just imagination. I wanted to know more, I needed to do more. I searched for other storytellers. I got involved with Daniel Allison’s yearlong Myth Singers course and joined the Storytelling Apprenticeship programme, and suddenly I found myself rubbing shoulders with people I really admire. Those people with that dark, mischievous twinkle in their eyes: creatives, artists, musicians, storytellers.
I am still early in my storytelling career, but I made a pact with myself that continues to stand me in good stead – I always say yes at an opportunity to tell a story. I said yes to performing at Stories on the Way, and it was through the apprenticeship programme I met Ailsa Dixon and Mark Borthwick. Mark suggested we put forward a proposal for SISF in 2022. I said yes, and from that we created a couple of beautiful shows together, including Speak Out the Other and Land Under Wave. Recently, Mark and I worked on an hour-long retelling of the Irish epic, the Táin Bó Cúailnge, which we sold out at the Fringe this year. I’ve also experimented with some personal storytelling with a solo piece I performed at Festival at the Edge this year and done a fair bit of festival touring. I’ve shared stories beneath a magical storytelling tree at Wildhood festival, (questionably) played the bodhran on the main stage at Hartlepool folk festival. This summer I stood beneath an old herring drifter and shared her story accompanied by an orchestra as part of the East Neuk Festival, in a piece devised by the incredible Esther Swift.
After leaving university in 2014, I decided that what I loved most about ecology was engaging people out in nature. I started volunteering for charities in Edinburgh, building up experience in that field. I had various jobs on the side, including working in science communication. Through science communication, I realised that science engagement does not need to be dull –there is a place for performance, passion, and emotion in science. It is at the confluence of mythos and logos that interesting stuff happens. Storytelling exists in that space between, where both rivers meet. It bridges the worlds between the imagination and with reality. My love for language and ecology need not be held separately – they work well together well. They need each other.
I’ve been so fortunate to work with and meet storytellers over these past few years, I’m constantly learning and pushing myself. It is a joy to have found the storytelling community, and to be mentored by those who understand the craft and care deeply about it. I am currently studying a masters in Outdoor and Environmental Education and have been looking at storytelling as a crucial part of education, of challenging capitalist and colonial worldviews, of finding ways to be in right relationship with nature, and each other.
When we tell a story, every person that told that story stands behind us in that moment. I love that image. My own story is co-written by all the mentors, the storytellers, the young people and the grasshoppers I’ve had the good fortune to cross paths with. They are absolutely with me when I tell a story. I’m so grateful for that.
David Hughes
