A Happy Ending - Tails of the Unexpected

In the last of this week's conference posts Chrissie Godfrey from Taunton Transition Town relates the tales told by Transitioners that she gathered as part of the travelling storytelling team . . .

It was Steph’s idea to dress up as storytellers. Come on, she said, we can wear hats.

I didn’t want to wear a hat. I look stupid in hats. So I made a tail, a fantastic tail (a tale in its own right as someone said) because no one, of course, looks stupid in a tail.

I wandered around in the mellow conference evenings, asking you what was the most unexpected thing for you in this gathering so far. (“Besides seeing a woman wearing a tail?” you said.) You told me their stories, and wrote them down and pinned them onto the tail which fairly bristled by the end of each evening. These are the stories I heard, the tales of the unexpected, your tales.

You told me unexpected tales of nature. Shivering in the chilly English rain on Friday, then soaking up the hot sunshine as you sunbathed on Saturday. Finding a surprising wild space in Childwell Park just a short walk away. Discovering a beautiful allotment site while out on a hungover early morning run. Meeting a fox who looked into your eyes and told you “You are also a fox! I will now go hunting. Please relax. I will be right back.” When she came, you said, the world was a better place.

You told me tales of unexpected food. One of you found your morning porridge surprising. Another was surprised at being able to have a cooked breakfast. Someone else was surprised by such an incredible lunch selection of couscous, cousous and more couscous.......

You told me tales of the unexpected kindness of the Liverpudlians. Walking through the city looking for a park, and meeting a driver who reversed especially so they could get out of their car and tell you the way. Or arriving in the city from Brazil and a lovely lady you’d never met before paid your bus fare because you didn’t have any money......

You also told me some tales of unexpected sorrow. You were sad that getting to the campus by public transport was so difficult. You were sad that there was, in essence, so little diversity here. Sad too that there were so few young people.....

You told me tales of unexpected conference happenings - that despite yourself you rather enjoyed the singing; that you could dance the five rhythms; that there are such things as Green Care organisations. You were heartened at a sense of new possibilities for a Transition Nottingham in the light of Rob’s ingredients analysis, and excited by the focus on social enterprise. You were surprised, and moved, by the level of maturity and the readiness to Think Big......

There were tales of unexpected emotion too. Bursting into tears in the chapel during the walking exercise on Sunday morning; crying quietly into your dinner as the Flash Mob sang their hearts out. Thinking we grown ups were so clever doing all this Transition stuff, until we stood, wet cheeked and humbled as we heard and saw the kids at the Open Mic session......

But there was one tale that you told me over and over again, a tale of an unexpected new world, a tale in which you saw and relished that so many people had travelled here from beyond the UK, that there were LOADS of you! And that the whole dynamic of the Transition movement is changing because of this. Chrissie Godfrey

Collecting our labels from the storyteller's blanket at the end of the conference (with Simeon, Kerry and Rob Hopkins); weaving a collective chain at the Big Group Process (photos by Charlotte Du Cann)