Thursday 5 December 2013

Local Primary School children perform their very particular Food Heritage Story

Year 6 children from the local Primary School have worked hard to produce a play in a day!
Children travelled to the  wonderful Dunham Massey Village Hall to work on the history of nightsoil and vegetables travelling 'to and fro' along the canal that runs as the end of their school playground.
Drawing a victorian potato seller from Potato Wharf



The pupils learned about the story of nightsoil collection from Salford and Manchester, its transportation out to the local fields as fertiliser, and the return on the same boat (!) of local crops to Potato Wharf and the City's markets.





Artist Rory Lynch works with the children



The children created the story for  'Remembering the Food Cycle' with reference to the Forgotten Fields research.
Using stories of local people and places they created characters, props and the set for the play.






The nightsoil cart...props cut out for the production

Characters include the Lord Mayor of Manchester, his maid, the nightsoil man and unhappy co-workers, Mr Jackson (market gardener, Lime Tree House)
and the potato dealer at Castlefield.
Props include 'the privvy, the night-soil horse and cart, the canal-boat, the heap of night-soil, the potato dealer's barrow, the toilet bucket, and the Manchester Times, 14th April, 1849.
The set included a Potato Wharf Warehouse and the Oxnoble Pub at Castlefield (named after a potato).

Dress rehearsal!



The children wrote their own scripts and practiced crab like moves across the stage to keep their 'characters' facing the audience!







 Mrs T created a wonderful rhythmn piece in costume with children not on the stage.

The whole performance was filmed by Rory and we hope to be able to show this soon...
Watch this space!


















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