Orcadian storyteller Fran Hollinrake introduced herself as someone who both studies and teaches her craft. After her enchanting presentation as the cruise ship’s evening entertainment, I asked her “What is it you teach people—besides stories—that makes them good storytellers?”
She told me there are five basic elements to storytelling.
"First, it’s always about the people," she started and then interrupted herself. “I’m ready for a drink. Let’s talk in the bar.”
As we settled down with our drinks, she continued: “Every family has its cherished stories. These are the stories the young ones hear as soon as they are old enough to sit with the grownups. The stories the new brides and grooms hear as they are accepted into the fold.”
Ask anyone to tell their family stories, and you’ll hear about people. The story won’t be that a raccoon got into the outhouse. The story will be about how Uncle Bob reacted when he mistook it for a bear. The story won’t be about the flood, but about how Aunt Jane put the pies into the boat while letting the clothes be swept away.
The same is true of our trip to England, Scotland, and Norway. Like all good journeys, only on the surface was it about the gardens, the stones, the lambs, the waterfalls. It was most essentially about the people—in particular, about the ancestors and relatives.
A wee bit of backstory
I have a hard time explaining my interest in genealogy, even to myself. We truly are one. All joys are shared. All children are our own. Knowing that, genealogy is silly. I am part of the same unity whether I'm descended from Charlemagne or from the immigrant who got off the boat yesterday.
At the same time, we need to maintain what connections we can. Finding the ancestors—or even better, the living relatives!—produces a sense of continuity that helps to counteract the illusion that we are or ever will be truly independent individuals.
So for our first big trip in several years, Keith and I decided on an ancestry trip—either Scandinavia for him or the British Isles for me. The most attractive package we encountered was a blend of both, Gohagan’s cruise of the Scottish Isles and Norwegian Fjords. We booked the cruise last fall but, following the travel agent's advice, waited to buy our plane tickets to Edinburgh until prices would be lowest, about three months beforehand.
So our precise travel dates were not yet locked in when The...Most...Amazing..Thing...happened.
In November, my sister Ellen was contacted through Ancestry.com by a close DNA match: fourth cousin Anne S., from North Yorkshire in England.
The three of us emailed for a while, sharing information about ourselves and our ancestors. Anne lives in North Yorkshire, not too far from where our shared great-grandparents lived in the mining towns surrounding Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Delightfully, Anne’s mother, Betty, still lives in Morpeth and still remembers my Great-aunt Sue Abercrombie’s visit to England in the 1960s.
After emailing for a few weeks, I approached Keith: “Technically Anne and I are strangers who met on the internet,” I said. “But this is for-real DNA, not some chat room. How about I find out whether we can go a little early and meet the relatives while we’re in the UK?” Keith agreed, and I asked Anne whether she and her husband Andrew could make it up to Edinburgh to meet us if we arrived a day or two early.
Well, no, Anne didn’t want to do that. She counter-proposed that Keith and I should arrive several days early, stay with them; meet other cousins; and see the ancestral stomping grounds in Bedlington, Choppington, Morpeth and environs.
How amazing is that? In all my 67 years, the one time a long-lost cousin in England establishes contact, it’s precisely when we were planning to be in the area anyway, but hadn't yet bought the plane tickets! Fate must have arranged this, so Keith and I left for Britain about a week earlier than we had planned, and got two trips-of-a-lifetime in one.
We stayed with Anne and Andrew from Monday through Wednesday and with her mother on Thursday night. They are absolutely everything everyone wishes their relatives to be--gracious, friendly, smart, funny, interesting, all-round good folks. They showed us the area—northern England is gorgeous—and we met other wonderful relatives and friends. (Details to come in a later post.)
In addition to places of unique family interest, our visit to England included:
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| Royal Horticultural Society Harlow Carr Garden in Harrogate. I was fascinated by the gardeners' willow-weaving, of which this bench and edging (lower left) are only two examples. (Click on the photos to view them larger.) |
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| The Sun Inn in Norwood, a like-nowhere-else, dog-friendly, built-in-1774, biker-hangout, upscale-menu country inn and pub.That's Andrew, Anne, and Keith; |
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| Fountains Hall and Abbey. Yes, I know King Henry VIII kick-started England's middle(ish) class by dismantling the monasteries and giving the loot and land to his buddies. But I'm still mad. I don't even know where to start raving about this ruined cathedral and abbey, 17th-century mansion, and stunning gardens, National Trust and World Heritage site; |
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| Beamish Museum. Imagine Disney World if they forgot about fairy tales and instead threw all their energy into transporting you back into real, everyday life in 1900s northern England. |
On Friday night, Keith and I headed up to Edinburgh to join the package tour, which in Scotland took us to:
Edinburgh –
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| The National Museum of Scotland, one of the top 20 most-visited museums in the world. These are some of the Lewis Chessmen, from the 12th Century; |
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| Edinburgh Castle. Believe it or not, this was the view from our hotel room!!! |
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| The White Hart Inn, Edinburgh's oldest pub, est. 1516, where I discovered I like haggis, neeps, and tatties. |
Glasgow –
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| Glasgow Cathedral, the most graceful blend of medieval and modern elements I’ve ever seen; |
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| Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, which gets more than 2 million visitors each year, making it the most visited UK museum outside London. Highlights for me included the work of Charles Rennie and Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh; |
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| The People’s Palace and Winter Garden—Every city should have a museum focused on the daily life of its normal working people over the years. |
The western Highlands –
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| Glencoe, a beautiful landscape haunted by a despicable 1692 massacre ordered up by King William III; |
The Isle of Skye –
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| Gorgeous spring scenery around the Kyle of Lochalsh, a charming fishing village; |
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| Eilean Donan Castle, a fully restored medieval castle and probably one of the most photographed locations in Scotland. Can you see Keith on the path there? |
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| The village of Portree, the capital of the Isle of Skye |
The Orkney Islands –
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| The Ring of Brodgar and Skara Brae, where our Neolithic forebears developed megalithic skills later used at Stonehenge and elsewhere; |
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| St. Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall, a 12th-century Norse cathedral. (We were taught to call the ancestors who settled "Norse," and to save the term "Viking" for the ones who raided and pillaged.) |
The Shetland Islands –
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| Jarlshof, occupied at various times by Neolithic, Norse, and Tudor-era people; and |
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| Shopping for great sweaters in Lerwick. |
And in Norway we visited:
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| Norway’s longest and most beautifal fjord, the Sognefjord, and the village of Flam, from where we rode the train to the top, past astounding waterfalls and wild areas; |
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| The home of Edvard Grieg (You know his music.) |
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| The Fantoft Stave Church, originally constructed in the 12th century using techniques of Viking shipbuilding, completely reconstructed in 1992 using the same techniques; and |
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| Bryggen, a village of commercial buildings from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, built and occupied by the men (only men) of the Hanseatic League, an alliance that broke new diplomatic and international-trade ground in the 14th century. |
The other four essential elements of storytelling, after "people," according to Fran are...
Well, that got lost in the conversation or the alcohol. I’ll look them up on the internet and get back to you.
Next post: 2 - Neolithic Ancestors (coming soon)
