Creative Ink for Actors’ 20th Anniversary Reunion or ‘Seeing it in the Trees’

‘Creative Ink for Actors’ 20th Anniversary Reunion’ or ‘See it in the Trees’.
At the end of term in the summer of 2002, a honey-eyed young student asked if I would write and produce a play for the departing BND students and I said, ‘Yep’.
Twenty years later ‘Blackberry Promises’, ‘Good Things from Bad Rubbish’, ‘Brave Hearts & Baggage’, ‘The Deadly Factor’ written par moi, ‘Bird Bath’ by Leonard Melfi and a film ‘Dear John, Dear Anyone’ (12 parting shots by different writers) had been produced by 2012. In the past ten years: reading from my poetry collection ‘Red Lipstick & Revelations’ and from my novels ‘Blackberry Promises’ and ‘Shakespeare’s Clock’ (all available on Amazon) have been performed also at Amersham Barn Hall. For the recent reunion the multi-talented Kerria baked a cake and decorated it with all the productions written in icing and with all correct upper and lower case intact.
The width and breadth of actors and techies stretch to roundabout thirty and so on this reunion I was anticipating and expecting a hefty turnout as partners and children were also invited. But alas, when the week came, work, auditions, upcoming new babies, booked holidays competed for our reuniting. All worthy. Some just had better things to do and some didn’t bother to reply to a well ‘headed up’ date.
But on the day, some of the loveliest people I know, came with joy – including that young honey-eyed former student. And when the fizz and laughter bubbled I remembered what hard-working fun it had all been. The overriding emotion was just enjoying the day for what it was and I recalled a Philosophy lecture at the end of my Royal Central School of Speech and Drama course entitled ‘The Seriousness of Study’. I didn’t bother to attend. But I heard that cheese and fizz had been laid on in abundance and those who pitched up have all been very smug for fifty years.
Enfin, when I was giving Jenny (who played Zelda Mabs in ‘Blackberry Promises’) and her husband a lift back to the station, she said, ‘Oh, Jan. Think what you gave those young people and all the fun we had.’
And then before I could reply her husband Jai said from the back of the car, ‘What amazing topiary you have in this part of the world’.
And do you know? I haven’t stopped noticing the shape of our wonderful trees since …
Postscript: I am now branching out into narrating audio books, so if you want one spoken for Amazon etc, inbox me.