Storytelling Revivalism in England and Wales: History, Performance and Interpretation Simon R. Heywood Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The National Centre for English Cultural Tradition School of English University of Sheffield May 2001 Abstract This study discusses the storytelling movement in England and Wales as an example of the traditional arts "revival." "Revivals" are qualitatively different from mature traditions, but this distinction eludes theorisation. This creates shortcomings in the literature, which are identified and discussed. It is concluded that mature traditions and "revivals" are both subcategories of traditional milieu. The "revival" is distinguished, firstly, by its attenuated diachronic chains of transmission and synchronic bonds of social cohesion, resulting in a loss of deep aesthetic consensus in the participant group; and, secondly, by its self-traditionalisation: its selfconscious self-presentation as a traditional form socioculturally opposed to a traditionless mainstream modernity. The "revival" is therefore often understood as a nostalgic and symbolic re-enactment of desired sociocultural conditions. The study is an inductive, transparent consideration of storytelling revivalism in England and Wales in the light of this preliminary conclusion, considering three issues: the history of the movement; the whole-group performance of storytelling events; and emic interpretations and understandings of involvement, elicited in interview. The evidence is that storytelling revivalism is part of a long-lived appropriative process transcending sociocultural distinctions; that its performative idioms do not express but mediate - eventually, undermine - its iconoclastic separateness from modernity, integrating the formally "revived" form into the informal mainstream; and that interviews demonstrated nostalgic sociocultural beliefs to be contingent and of secondary importance to aesthetic experience. In conclusion, revivalistic communities indulge selfconscious self-traditionalisation sparingly and reluctantly. Emically, it is an uninteresting implication or a necessary cognitive and behavioural stopgap facilitating a deeper experiential familiarity with the form itself "Revival," although occupying an intellectually enfranchised milieu, is properly a nascent non-intellectual, aesthetic and social form. This conclusion overturns the preliminary conclusion, and suggests the general fallaciousness of assuming that cultural forms are primarily coded representations of sociocultural conditions. "I have been deceived so often," Tou replied, "that 1 am going to make a careful record." P'u Sung Ling The Princess Lily Acknowledgements Thanks are due primarily to the storytelling enthusiasts and others who provided the interviews, documents and comment on which this study is based, here given in alphabetical order by first name: Alan Bearman, Alan Sparkes, Allan Price, Amanda Smith. Amy Douglas, Andrew Peters, Angela Rogers, Anne Latto, Ashley Ramsden, Barbara Neville, Ben Haggarty, Bernard Kelly, Bill Paton, Chris Hill, Clive Hopwood, Cynthia Allen, Dave Greatrex, David Ambrose, Donald Smith, Eileen Colwell, Emma McElwee, Fiona Collins, Fiona Rolls, Grace Hallworth, Graham Langley, Hugh Lupton, Hugh Waterhouse, Ian Stringer, Jan Williams, Jane Hislam, Jasmine Perinpanayagam, Jennie Mechti, Jenny Pearson, Jill Jobson, Jimmy Neil Smith, Joan Jones, John Carruthers, John Widdowson, Jonathan Calder, Judith Baresel, Julia Bishop, Kathleen Heywood, Kelvin Hall, Kev Theaker, Leila Dudley-Edwards, Liam Kennedy, Lindsay Millard, Liza Watts, Louisa Tagg, Lynne Kirk, Malcolm Speake, Malcolm Storey, Mary Medlicott, Mary Steele, Michael Dacre, Mike Rust, Mike Wilson, Morwenna Rowe, Neville Burkett, Nick Toczek, Nicole Pollen, Oliver Savage, Pam Moir-Evans, Pat Bowen, Pat Ryan, Paul Degnan, Pete Castle, Pete Keal, Peter Clarke RIP, Peter Maskens, Peter Millington, Raymond Greenoaken, Richard Berry, Richard Walker RIP, Rob Parkinson, Roy Dyson, Saira Dunnakey, Sally Tonge, Sandra Wye, Sedayne, Sharon Jacksties, Steve Dearden, Susanna Steele, Susie Doncaster, Taffy Thomas, Terry Jobson, Tina Bilbe, Tony Addison, Tony Aylwin, Tony Bennett, Tony Buckley, and Wendy Dacre; all those others who participated and contributed to fieldwork in August 1994 at Sidmouth International Festival of Folk Arts; all those others who participated and contributed to fieldwork between January and May 1996 at Tales at the Edge, the Wenlock Edge Inn, Shropshire; at Tall Tales at the Trip, the Old Trip to Jerusalem, Nottingham; at Tales at the Wharf, Stubbings Wharf, Hebden Bridge; and at the Camden Ceilidh, the Torriano Meeting House, Kentish Town. Thanks are doubly due to Professor John Widdowson for rigorous and supportive supervision, and patience in the face of Coleridgean languor. Thanks are additionally due to friends and colleagues at Sheffield University and elsewhere: to Vanessa Toulmin, without whose trenchant early suggestions this thesis would have been entirely different in content; to Julia Bishop, without whose postgraduate tuition, and perceptive but supportive criticism, it would have been entirely different in theoretical outlook; to Leila Dudley-Edwards, David Clarke, Malcolm Jones, Kate Smith and Jonathan Roper, without whose practical help, example, camaraderie and encouragement it might have remained unfinished; and to Tony Rees, Carl Tighe, Moy McCrory, and other staff and students of the undergraduate Experience of Writing and postgraduate Narrative Writing programmes at the University of Derby, for the enlightening livelihood which the teaching profession provides. Thanks are due to many others for help which was more informal but no less real: to Saira Dunnakey and lain Fairweather; to Arwen Heaton; to Steven Walker, Joanna Hynes, Susan Bond, Matthew Smith, and others of the Lueni Vagrantes; to Matthew Clegg; to James Boswell and the Thursday night circle; to Simon Dew, Alison Hunter, and other members and friends of the Jabadaw ceilidh band; to Andrew, Timothy, Sophie and Edward Heywood; to Emily Freeman; to Shonaleigh Cumbers and John Watson; and to Isaac Cumbers for bedtime stories. My deepest earthly debt is to my parents, John and Kathleen Heywood, to whom, in full knowledge of its inadequacy in this regard, this study is dedicated. Contents 1 Introduction: revival, tradition, and the folklorist 2 The scholarship of traditional arts revivalism 16 2.1 Preview 16 2.2 Revival and tradition .. 16 2.3 Scholarly approaches to traditional arts revivalism .. 25 2.3.1 Folk, lore, tradition and authenticity .. 29 2.3.2 The three problems in detail .. 42 2.3.2.1 Transparency of representation 42 2.3.2.2 Scale of scrutiny 45 2.3.2.3 Consistency of interest 75 2.4 Solutions 99 3 Methodology .. 111 3.1 Preview 111 3.2 The pilot study 113 3.2.1 Preliminary comments and prior intuitions .. 113 3.2.2 Fieldwork 120 3.2.3 Analysis 124 3.2.4 Findings 128 3.2.4.1 The nature of storytelling events 128 3.2.4.2 Participant understandings 137 3.2.5 Conclusions 155 3.3 The main study 159 3.3.1 Ontology and epistemology .. 159 3.3.1.1 Storytelling events: ontology and epistemology 161 3.3.1.2 Interviews: ontology and epistemology 176 3.3.1.3 Historical development of storytelling revivalism: ontology and epistemology 194 3.3.2 Fieldwork 195 3.3.2.1 Descriptive and historical agenda: fieldwork .. 195 3.3.2.2 Event observation and analysis: fieldwork 198 3.3.2.3 Analytical interviews: fieldwork 207 3.3.3 Data processing and analysis .. 211 3.3.3.1 Descriptive and historical agenda: data processing and analysis .. 212 3.3.3.2 Event observation: data processing and analysis 213 3.3.3.3 Analytical interviews: data processing and analysis .. 214 3.3.4 The main study: evaluation and conclusion .. 215 4 The history of revivalistic storytelling in England and Wales .. 218 4.1 The wider context: revivalism and the mediation of vernacular and oral narrative culture .. 218 4.2 Revivalistic storytelling 1890 to 1972 234 4.3 Revivalistic storytelling 1972 to 1980 243 4.4 Revivalistic storytelling 1980 to 1990 245 4.5 Revivalistic storytelling 1990 to 1998 259 4.6 Conclusion 274 5 Revivalistic storytelling performance (1): participants, genres, key and instrumentalities 282 5.1 Preview 282 5.2 Settings 283 5.2.1 Tales at the Edge 283 5.2.2 Tall Tales at the Trip .. 288 5.2.3 Tales at the Wharf 293 5.2.4 The Camden Ceilidh .. 296 5.3 Participants 301 5.3.1 The participant group: demographics .. 303 5.3.2 The participant group: internal structure 312 5.4 Genres .. 326 5.5 Key and instrumentalities: performative styles and textures 330 5.5.1 Textual techniques 333 5.5.1.1 Repetition and parallelism 333 5.5.1.2 Exaggeration and superlativity 339 5.5.1.3 Imitation of sources .. 341 5.5.1.4 Irony and bathos 345 5.5.2 Metatextual devices: pitch, volume, speed and gesture 347 5.5.3 Song, verse, music and instrumental accompaniment 348 5.5.4 Variation 349 6 Revivalistic storytelling performance (2): norms, act sequences, and the interactive achievement of revivalistic storytelling 352 6.1 Preview 352 6.2 A model of storytelling event structures and processes 354 6.3 Application of the model to the enactment of the revivalistic storytelling event .. 368 6.3.1 Event 6: Tall Tales at the Trip, Nottingham, 19th March 1996 .. .. .. 368 6.3.2 Event 12: The Camden Ceilidh, London, 29th April 1996 382 6.3.3 Event 13: Tales at the Edge, Wenlock Edge, 13th May 1996.. .. .. .. 394 6.3.4 Event 17: Tales at the Wharf, Hebden Bridge, 28th June 1996 406 6.4 Conclusion of event observation 415 7 The experience and interpretation of revivalistic storytelling 432 Vll 7.1 Preview 432 7.2 Biographical and developmental issues 434 7.3 Interview analysis 441 7.3.1 Section 1 443 7.3.2 Section 2 450 7.3.3 Sections 3, 5 and 6 456 7.3.4 Section 4 460 7.3.5 Section 7 463 7.3.6 Section 8 466 7.3.7 Section 9 467 7.3.8 Section 10 469 7.3.9 Section 11 473 7.3.10 Section 12 477 7.3.11 Section 13 478 7.3.12 Concluding comments: responses to the interview .