Spa Magazine

CREATIVE UNIVERSE Why the south-west is where it’s at in 2017 ROCK ON Moles celebrates its 40th birthday

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ON PRACTICE The art of getting it right, over and over again

The magazine of Bath Spa University

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FEATURES 14 CREATIVE UNIVERSE The south-west is the new centre of the creative universe. We ask the region’s leading creatives for the recipe of its success.

20 ROCK ON Moles nightclub will be 40 years young in 2018. And this is its sweaty, loud, guitar-riff-driven history.

The award-winning author and Professor of Creative Writing hasn’t always had it her own way, but admits she’s never been happier.

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30 INSPIRATION IS FOR SLACKERS Because practice – when you feel like it and when you don’t – is what the professionals do. We look at the art of getting it right.

36 WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS What is it really like collaborating with friends? We ask business partners what happens when your work and your social support systems collide.

BACK SECTION 43 UNIVERSITY MATTERS 44 AT WORK: TERRY POPE 46 ADVENTURES IN....

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46 Publisher: Bath Spa University, Newton Park, Newton St Loe, Bath BA2 9BN. Editorial enquiries: Kate Love – k.love@bathspa.ac.uk Alumni enquiries: Paola Bassindale – p.bassindale@bathspa.ac.uk Advertising enquiries: Amethyst Biggs – a.biggs3@bathspa.ac.uk Spa is produced by YBM Ltd – info@ybm.co.uk Copyright © 2017 The opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of Bath Spa University or YBM Ltd Editor: Mira Katbamna Deputy Editor: Steve McGrath Art Director: Finnie Finn Cover: Photograph by Lydia Whitmore Icons: Mikey Burton Fonts: Sentinel, Futura, Akzidenz Grotesk Featured dropcaps: Set in Plantin, printed using hot metal type at the Sion Hill campus

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ON CAMPUS

FINE ARTS

Artist or assistant: who’s the boss?

A pioneering creative research project exploring the relationships between artist and assistant has launched with the release of a book focusing on Sir Anthony Caro, the father of modern British sculpture. The book, Artist Boss, investigates the traditional assistant’s role and its impact on learning and artistic careers.

“There are collaborative elements which often influence and change the course of an artist’s work,” says Jenny Dunseath, the book’s author and Senior Lecturer in Fine

Art, who is leading the project. “We set out to provide an intimate and frank interpretation of the artist and ways of working, gaining some wonderful insights from those closest to Caro in the studio and exploring how the experience has shaped their careers.”

An exhibition was also held at the New Art Centre, Roche Court over the winter, with two associate exhibitions also taking place at The Cut in Suffolk and Bath Spa University’s Bath School of Art and Design.

Visit www.artistboss.org.uk for more information about the Artist Boss project.

LETTERS ELBOW GREASE

INSTALLATION

Jeremy Irons becomes University’s first Chancellor

There were so many great succes stories about careers in music in the last issue that, as an alumni of Bath Spa’s BA Acting programme, I am pleased to verify that a career in acting is just as possible after graduation. Yes it is hard work, but since September 2015 I have been touring around Spain with Theatre in Education (TIE), a company producing five different shows.

We now have five new shows which we are all working extremely hard on. I just wanted to to say thanks to the incredible staff that teach BA Acting and to say that it is possible to have your dream career!.

Joanne Mulley (Acting, 2014)

THE RIGHT THING

It’s fascinating to read in the magazine about all the wonderful things Bath Spa students have been doing since they left.

From my own experience as a writer I just wanted to say my own thank you. The team at BSU drilled into me that this career path wasn’t going to be a picnic – and they were right – but I’m thrilled to say that having signed a three-book deal with Oftomes Publishing for my debut series, the first book, Trapped in Silver, launches in February.

As well as my author bits, I’m a news editor for an online gaming site, and I consider myself the luckiest person in the world to have two jobs that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

I don’t have much time off, I don’t get paid very much, and I work long, long hours, but it’s all proved to me that this was the right path.

Emily Sowden (Creative Writing, 2013)

Outstanding!

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Oscar-winning actor Jeremy Irons – who began his career at the Bristol Old Vic – has said that he is “delighted and honoured” to become the first ever Chancellor of Bath Spa University.

He took up his role as the ceremonial figurehead of the University at an installation ceremony in the autumn.

Irons adds: “Being a believer in the importance of integrated education, I am delighted to see the education and research happening at Bath Spa moving in this direction. Having been educated at Sherborne, and trained and apprenticed at the Bristol Old Vic, including a run at the Theatre Royal Bath, it feels right for me to accept this role.”

Irons has appeared in numerous productions in the West End and on Broadway, as well as starring in the TV series Brideshead Revisited. His many film credits include Kafka, Dead Ringers, Lolita, The Man in the Iron Mask, The Lion King and Reversal of Fortune, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Announcing his appointment, Vice-Chancellor Professor Christina Slade said: “Creativity is at the heart of Bath Spa University. Through his vast experience in the arts, Jeremy Irons will bring unique insight and influence our vision to be the leading university for creativity, culture and enterprise.”

Congratulations on another great issue of the magazine. Now, more than ever, I can appreciate all the hard work that goes into it, since I’m part of a group of BSAD graduates (including designers, illustrators, photographers and writers all from Bath Spa University) producing Elbow Grease, an “honest portrayal of entrepreneurialism”. It is a great example of the work that comes out of the school and the sort of opportunities that arise from collaboration.

I always appreciated how highly cross-discipline projects were valued at BSAD and Elbow Grease is a great example of that.

The magazine is available to buy from www.tomasydenham.com and all the details are on our Kickstarter page (www.kickstarter.com/ projects/1949917870 / elbow-grease-magazine).

Thomas Sydenham (Graphic Communication, 2012)

ACTING UP

Love it? Hate it?

We want to hear from you!

Email us at alumni@bathspa.ac.uk or write to us at Bath Spa Development and Alumni Relations Office, Bath Spa University, Newton Park, Newton St Loe, Bath, BA2 9BN Please mark your letters ‘for publication’.

Letters may be edited for length. @BathSpaAlumni facebook.com/BathSpaUniversityAlumni

The Bath Spa Institute for Education has been rated as ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted for its primary and secondary teacher education programme. It’s the highest grade that can be given, and the Institute’s second successive grade 1 (outstanding) score in a row. “This is a reflection of the dedication of our university staff who promote excellence and expertise in education research and professional practice,” said Professor Kate Reynolds, Dean of Education.

DECONSTRUCTED

No. 6 Green Park Road

AGONY AUNT

ORIGINAL 1804 1: It stands on the site of Jane Austen’s former home, where the Austen family lived from 1804 to 1805, and where her father died.

2: The site was bombed during the Second World War and has since housed offices and a care home.

3: The proportions of the buildings, with parapets and chimney details, reflect a typical Georgian building found in Bath city centre.

NEW 2017 1: The renovated building will accommodate first year students in purpose-built student housing, providing an additional 461 bed spaces for the University to house new and continuing students.

2: Green Park House is built using classic Bath Stone.

3: The accommodation includes a laundry room and a common room, plus bike racks and two parking spaces for disabled students.

She read the first sentence...

How amazing that ink marks on paper can contain such power, she thought.

Extract from the prologue of The Good Guy.

Susan Beale (MA Creative Writing, 2013) was shortlisted in the 2016 Costa Book Awards First Novel category. Judges called Beale’s novel, The Good Guy (John Murray), “an absorbing and deeply affecting novel by a gifted storyteller”.

Q: Technology is changing so rapidly: how can I stay credible when the kids are more up to date than me?

A: Thank you to the newly qualified teacher who sent in this great first question to start our regular column.

First, take a step back and ask “What are you trying to do and how would the technology help you?”. Remember, technology is just another tool in your toolbox, so it’s worth thinking about how it can enhance, extend and transform learning for your pupils. YouTube, iTunes U and other sites such as www.bbc.co.uk/learning can be a great resource, but the trick is to be as specific as you can when searching.

It’s the same message when it comes to assessing who to follow on Twitter. I was recently named by JISC as one of the top 50 social media influencers in higher education, helped hugely by our work to link education professionals through #becreativebeateacher, but you can also engage with other teachers through online Twitter chats, such as ukedchat.

Don’t be afraid to ‘lurk’ ( just observe) to start with and then later start to contribute as confidence grows.

These chats involve educational digital leaders such as @ictevangelist, who share information about the latest tools and how to use them for educational purposes.

Other resources, such as TES, regularly publish top educational apps/online resources, so they are definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Really it’s about getting the right tool for the job – online resources for teaching, social media and games for chatting to friends and sometimes a good old-fashioned pen and paper. And remember, the largest group of technology users are the ‘silver surfers’ – those more than 60 years old – so it may be that Granny is more up to date than the youngsters – which must mean there’s hope for us all!

Follow Kate @BathSpaEdDean

PHOTOS: CRESCENT-PHOTOGRAPHY.COM, BATH IN TIME - BATH CENTRAL LIBRARY. ILLUSTRATIONS: SAM KERR, ANNA WRAY

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Kate Reynolds, Dean of Education and Professor of Education Policy, steps in to our new column.

NEW RESEARCH

Bath Spa University generated the equivalent of two per cent of Bath and North East Somerset’s economy in 2014 and 2015, a report from Oxford Economics has found.

£94m 2,050 11.5% VALUE-ADDED CONTRIBUTION THE UNIVERSITY WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR A VALUE-ADDED CONTRIBUTION OF £94M TO THE BATH AND NORTH EAST SOMERSET ECONOMY.

JOBS SUPPORTED IN THE BATH AREA THE UNIVERSITY SUPPORTED MORE THAN 2,050 JOBS IN THE AREA, WITH THE UNIVERSITY ITSELF EMPLOYING MORE THAN 966 PEOPLE.

INCREASE IN CREATIVE SECTOR JOBS THE STUDY ALSO FOUND THAT, OVER THE PAST FIVE YEARS, THE NUMBER OF REGIONAL JOBS WITHIN THE CREATIVE SECTOR HAS RISEN BY ABOUT 11.5%.

CREATIVE WRITING

The write stuff

To find out more about the Paper Nations project, and to sign up your school, visit www.papernations.org

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From drawing a Harry Potter-inspired Fantastic Beast, or imagining what would happen if you woke up one day and time had stopped, there are infinite ways to inspire children to write creatively.

Now, a new writing programme, Paper Nations, is looking for local schools to help harness that creativity with ‘Dare to Write’ – a series of creative writing prompts including challenges, resources and opportunities for children and young people.

Every week, Paper Nations will share ideas of fun, interactive creative writing activities on their blog as well as on the Twitter and Facebook pages. Young writers can share their stories via Twitter or Facebook using the #DaretoWrite hashtag.

The project is led by Bath Spa University in partnership with Bath Festivals and the National Association of Writers in Education. Professional writers will work with teachers to develop high quality creative writing experiences for children aged eight to 14.

“Creative writing should be part of every child’s education, as it develops imaginative thought, language and literary skills,” says the project’s Creative Director Professor Bambo Soyinka. “Paper Nations will introduce school pupils to the joys of writing and will enable young people to learn alongside professional writers.”

JUMP 19-28 INMAY 2017 A CELEBRATION OF WORDS, MUSIC AND LITERATURE â–º thebathfestival.org.uk

Bath Box Office 01225 463362

The best creatives speak with a West Country accent John Cullum, Chair of Bath Festivals, says that the arts sector in the south-west is rising to the challenge of funding cuts by upping the ante on creativity.

ILLUSTRATION: SAM KERR

You’re not going to get the kids into the Guildhall, for all its chandeliers, because it’s not their scene

traditional venues we’ve brought new and exciting acts – earlier this year, New York swing band Hot Sardines didn’t just rock the Bath Guildhall, they created a buzz that rocked the whole Festival.

We need to keep creating this buzz, all around the region. And the secret is creativity, continuing to think differently. You’re not going to get kids into the Guildhall, for all its chandeliers, because it’s not their scene – so put a concert on elsewhere that is for them.

My son (jazz pianist Jamie Cullum) wanted to play a local concert for charity, but playing at a theatre would only get an audience of 1,500 – so instead he played at the Rec to 8,000.

Across the region, people are keeping that energy going in all areas of the arts. One of Bath’s annual highlights is now the Children’s Literature Festival – another great, creative new idea – and other festival organisers are doing great things in Taunton, Budleigh Salterton, Bristol and many other places.

It’s about creativity in business behind the scenes, too – we’re more inventive with our corporate and strategic partners, getting them to buy into the creative vision. And drawing people in means full hotels and restaurants for our wonderful towns and cities.

The challenge now (against the backdrop of funding cuts) is to continue that creative stream, giving us a platform not just to host a fantastic annual gathering of brilliant artists, but to build on that so creative people can find a home here throughout the year. For that reason the innovation, the artistic collaborations, the creative fusion of music and words, will continue to be key to our success both artistically and strategically.

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reativity: it’s not just about what you do, but how you do it. Those of us based in the southwest know what a wealth of artistic talent there is in this part of the country – indeed the region has a higher proportion of creative industry startups than anywhere else in the UK. The huge number of writers, artists, musicians, poets and sculptors is a testament to what a hotbed of imagination our corner of England is.

But it’s not enough to be creative, you have to think creative. It’s well-known that arts funding has suffered significant cuts over the past few years.

And this is a particular challenge in the south-west, where there are not enough opera houses or art galleries, and where the region’s biggest concert venue holds only slightly more than 3,000 people.

And this is where our region’s unique creative talent comes into its own. In 2018 the Bath Festival celebrates its 70th anniversary – and it promises to be the best ever. We have suffered cuts, but they have also honed our creativity. Over its history, the Festival has sometimes been guilty of looking inward, being self-indulgent – it’s easy to be complacent when the money’s rolling in. But having that funding cut makes you find different ways and discover new avenues to engage people.

All over the south-west this has prompted those involved in the arts to be more creative. In Bath in recent years, we’ve moved out into other, more unconventional venues with spectacular results.

Few who saw it will forget the American jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis’s fantastic concert in Bath Abbey, or the operatic performance of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at the Roman Baths. And in our

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SECRET SPA CORSHAM COURT Pakistani artist Salima Hashmi (Art Education, 1965) says that the grand staircase at Corsham Court will always hold a special place in her heart.

WORDS: KATE HILPERN PORTRAIT: ALUN CALLENDER

SALIMA HASHMI Salima Hashmi is one of Pakistan’s most recognised modern painters. She served for four years as the head of the National College of Arts and is the daughter of one of Pakistan’s most renowned poets, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, and the British-born Alys Faiz.

In 2016 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Bath Spa University.

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tanding on the Corsham Court staircase she first encountered 45 years ago, Salima Hashmi (Art Education, 1965) confesses she still feels like both an intruder and a rightful inhabitant.

“Students would congregate on the regal redcarpeted stairs, as they were then, and lounge under the Poussin landscapes and other masterpieces of the Methuen Collection. It was by far my favourite spot,” recalls the Pakistani artist, cultural writer, painter and anti-nuclear weapons activist.

“Looking back, I can see we enjoyed the stark contradiction of being surrounded by these paintings of consequence and sitting there in our dirty jeans and duffle coats.”

Hashmi says she was petrified when she first arrived. “Here I was, this young Pakistani girl who’d

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We would congregate on the regal red-carpeted stairs and lounge under the Poussin landscapes

never been away from home, let alone travelled alone. Arriving at Corsham – where I was the only south-Asian person for miles around – was overwhelming. Communications are so easy now, but just to make a phone call back then involved walking half a mile and finding the right pennies to slot in.

“And even when I did speak to my parents, I was far too proud to tell them how homesick I was.”

Indeed, Hashmi remembers walking home to her digs – “a room let by a landlady in a wonderful 17th century house a few miles away” – with tears trickling down her cheeks. “‘Well, you wanted to do this,’ I’d remind myself.”

The staircase at Corsham – the house which the artist Paul Methuen loaned to Bath Academy of Art when the Academy was bombed in the Second World War – became her refuge. “The house was so beautiful that I couldn’t fail to be seduced by it.

The grand, imposing staircase gave you quite a vantage point because you could watch everyone to-ing and fro-ing. So I’d have my meal in the dining hall, then climb the stairs.

“I’d find my favourite corner, withdraw into it – almost becoming part of the wall itself – and then do my people watching. I’d listen, too, because I was so fascinated by all the different accents and lingo.

What were spuds? What on earth was nosh? I’d listen really carefully to try and make sense of it all.

I was brought up with Dickens and Austen – that was my English!”

Eventually, Hashmi’s efforts to fit in paid off.

“By the second year, I’d really found my feet. I was so lucky to have the best teachers – Howard Hodgkin, Adrian Heath and Stephen Russ among them – and I made friends, with whom I experienced this cultural revolution as the Beatles started taking off. I can still remember I Wanna Hold Your Hand coming out and trying to decode it!”

As she grew in confidence, Hashmi moved away from her corner of the staircase to perch wherever her friends were.

“That staircase time provided a punctuation in the day. It was a meeting place and a forum – really the only spot you could see everyone at one glance.

You left messages for people, saying, ‘If so-and-so comes by, can you tell them...’”

One or two of the downstairs rooms were out of bounds, she says – “although on one memorable occasion we saw Jacqueline du Pré perform in one of them. This was my first encounter of listening to someone of her calibre and I was close enough to be able to touch her – quite amazing. Another time, Ted Hughes came to recite to us.”

Hashmi’s three years at Corsham “totally transformed me,” she says. “Even though I came from a family where literature, art and music were very much part of my background, it was very different to experience it in another culture on my own terms and with no support system.

“It was an experience in which I learned to test my own values, beliefs and many things I’d taken for granted. And the teacher training stood me in such good stead that I’ve remained a teacher for 45 years.

Still now, I meet the odd person who was at Corsham at that time and we all agree it was a unique place at a unique time in history. Corsham still lives within me.”

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TOOLS CREATIVE COMPUTING There’s much more to creative computing than just a mouse, a screen and a few wires, says subject leader Lee Scott.

WORDS: OLIVIA GORDON

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PHOTOGRAPHY: NICK DOLDING

1) 3Dio Free Space I’ve amassed tools that allow me to capture and manipulate sound.

I’ve recently been fascinated by binaural recording (3D sound), and this is the microphone I use to capture it. I call him Ian. Ian and I have been on some odd little walks around Bath recently, recording the sounds of a bustling Saturday night for a ‘digital opera’ I’m writing.

4) Convergence technologies [smartphone] This little box I carry with me every day is capable of so much and I really don’t think I could function properly without it.

Used fully and effectively, it’s a brilliant way to declutter life, leaving the way free for more creative thinking and time to develop the fledgling ideas it helps to capture.

2) A computer In my case this is a 2015 Macbook Pro running El Capitan.

But it doesn’t really matter what operating system you favour.

Some people get really hung up on the Apple vs Windows war.

I find that a bit silly. Each system has its particular benefits and limitations. For different projects I’ve used Linux, OSX, Windows, iOS, Android – you name it. The key is to know that the technology is there to serve human creativity, so just pick the ones that best advance your ideas.

5) The web The web is an endless playground, capable of supporting profound artistic expression. Pretty much everything I make relies on web technologies in some way or another. I use web programming languages (HTML5, JavaScript, PHP) to present dynamic content and networked physical computing devices (Arduino, Raspberry Pi) to connect places in interesting ways. My recent work makes use of the geolocation services in smartphones to offer rich experiences that rely on knowing where you are, and where you have been.

3) Emotiv Epoc+ electroencephalogram (EEG) This is a playful device for creative computing – a piece of headwear that captures brainwave activity.

Small sensors are attached to the scalp to detect the signals produced when brain cells send messages to one another. EEG devices provide a data source that we’re only just beginning to understand – exciting territory for artists who create with computing.

6) Gaming Storytelling helps us make sense of the world, and computing helps us tell stories in new ways. For me, computer games offer incredible opportunities for storytelling. We can interact with stories, steer their direction, visualise and sonify cause and effect, take ownership of our actions and tackle difficult topics. I use game mechanics across much of my work.

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We creatives cannot exist in a bubble, whatever our discipline Jeremy Irons, new Chancellor of Bath Spa, on why the arts are essential to every level of life.

ILLUSTRATION: SAM KERR

The arts are not, as sometimes perceived by the more philistine politicans, a layer of icing on the cake, they are the flour from which the cake is made

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am not a university-educated person, and when this role was first suggested by the Vice-Chancellor, I wondered quite what it would involve and how good or useful I could be. After I came down to look around the University and learn a little about its aspirations, I realised I could be of some use – and I was keen to embark on the adventure.

I have wide-ranging interests within the arts and I have an international career. Likewise, Bath Spa is an international university, exchanging knowledge globally and attracting students from very many different countries. So I thought that I could help to raise its profile around the world, and also to encourage students to think in a diverse way, building bridges between disciplines rather than just concentrating on their own.

Britain is extraordinary in that it’s a very small island, but our influence in the arts spreads through the world like veins through a body. We have a lot to offer, and Bath Spa is ideally placed to showcase our success story. The University is set in one of the most

beautiful cities of England, a place where people from all over the world would like to come and study.

I believe that the arts should be intertwined in every level of life. It’s not a them-and-us situation between scientists and artists; scientists are artists.

Pure mathematicians are not that dissimilar from poets. The arts are not, as is sometimes perceived by the more philistine of politicians, a layer of icing on the cake. The arts are the flour from which the cake is made.

Without the arts we would not prosper, and our ways of thinking would not be as broad as they are.

The arts touch people’s souls. Whatever our profession, if we ignore our souls then not only will we have an arid life, but our ideas will not be as fertile, nor as able to reach out to other people.

However, today’s students need to be aware of the realities of life if they are to fulfil their full potential.

You cannot exist in a bubble, whatever your discipline.

I hope that during my time as Chancellor, I will be able to encourage students to cross boundaries so that they will know how to run their careers – perhaps learning how to create a business, or how to disseminate their art, whether it be dressmaking, fashion design, filmmaking or whatever.

There is no point in making a film if no one is going to see it; you have to have an understanding of your audience. I know that in my world over the past 20 years, I have spent a huge amount of time publicising the work I have done – going on the road and raising people’s awareness of what has been created.

Life over the next 50 years is going to be quite extraordinary, and we are certain to see a lot of changes. Diversity will be vital. I think that students should be educated to be fleet of foot, and to have an awareness of how diverse the possibilities are within their field or even outside their field.

Those lucky enough to study at Bath Spa University have an enormous privilege – to experiment, to understand each other as students, to test each other and to test themselves to the limit.

It means that when they graduate and move into the marketplace, they will be honed and prepared, and will know their direction.

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TAKE 1 MUSICIAN 3 ARTISTS 2 DESIGNERS & AN EGG

AND STIR

The south-west is the new centre of the creative universe. What’s the recipe? We ask the region’s leading creatives how Bath went from backwater to ba-ba-boom.

WORDS: MEGAN WELFORD PHOTOGRAPHY: LYDIA WHITMORE STYLING: LINNEA APELQVIST

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he process started slowly. A few people venturing the idea that, actually, you could get a perfectly good flat white on Walcott Street.

A friend suggesting that a night in the Dark Horse matched anything that Dalston could offer. The distinct feeling that the creative life is just more fun in the south-west – less expensive, more collaborative, more imaginative – than it is in London. And today? Today, the south-west is simply – clearly – the centre of the creative universe.

Mixed media artist Andrea Wright (MA Fine Art, 2016) says the decision to relocate to the south-west was easy. “People are struggling in London,” she says.

“Creatives want more for their money – more facilities, more studio space, and they want to get on the property ladder. My husband and I had friends and family in the south-west and every time we’d come to Bath we’d think, ‘we’ve got to live here!’”

But it’s not just about the cost of living – after all, the south-west isn’t always the cheapest place to live in the UK. As long-term residents of the region are

STEP 1 Crack the egg into the flour.

Add a generous dash of colour and a raw, undiluted image. Pause to silently thank William Oliver: doctor, philanthropist and inventor of the Bath buns with which Jane Austen reported ‘disordering’ her stomach in 1801.

well aware, Bath and Bristol have thriving – and multiple – scenes, something that is a real pull for young creatives starting their careers. “I was always a fan of the music scene in Bristol and I felt like there were galleries popping up in Bath: an emerging art scene,” Wright explains. “There are independent shops selling fashion and culture magazines that before you’d only get in certain parts of London. I still go to London a lot and I get the late train back from Paddington. When I see the lights of Bath I breathe a sigh of relief and think, ‘Ah, I’m home!’”

Wright was lured to Bath from London two years ago and says that moving to the south-west has definitely been good for her career. “I have a solo exhibition coming up at 44AD studios, I plan to take advantage of Bath Spa’s alumni programme of workshops and networking, and I’m involved in the Fringe Arts Bath festival.”

It makes sense. Employment in the creative industries in the south-west is increasing faster than in any other area outside London and the south-east, with a 32 per cent increase between 2011 and 2014.

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Organisations such as Nesta and TechNation, which map innovation, have named the south-west as one of the key creative tech clusters outside London. House price rises in the past three years point to an influx of residents, many fleeing the capital.

Indeed, Dave Jarman, a teaching fellow at Bristol University’s Centre of Innovation, points out that the area’s universities are net importers of graduates – six months after graduation those graduates are still in the south-west. Why do they stay? For the jobs, of course.

“The film and TV industry in the south-west is the biggest outside London, worth £17.5m in Bristol alone,” he says. “BBC Radio, Factual and Natural History units are all here, as well as Aardman Animations.”

Professor Andrew Spicer of the University of the West of England has identified 142 satellite companies around the major players: post-production companies, prop makers, event hire, media and marketing companies. “This clustering effect is very important and it has grown organically over a period of time. These historical clusters are now coming of age,” he says.

STEP 2 Add the sugar and butter, and mix it up as much as you like. Feel pleased that you were not one of William Oliver’s patients: his bun proved too sweet for them, forcing him to invent the Bath Oliver dry biscuit.

“What’s also important is the interface between creative and tech disciplines here. For example, the BBC and Aardman are traditionally ‘creative’ companies, but their use of technology is increasingly important. So you get companies like Bristol Robotics Lab and Pervasive Media working with them. It spills over into the internet of things – wearable technology and so on. There’s an emerging younger generation who combine creativity and tech much more easily.”

For Katharine Reeve, Subject Leader for Publishing at Bath Spa, it is collaboration and partnership that are the key. “As part of the development process for the new Cultural and Creative Strategy for Bath and North East Somerset Council we organised events that brought people together, sometimes for the first time. The economy is fast-moving and competitive – no single organisation can hope to do much alone,” she says. “But if you can create a culture of collaboration – as we are trying to do here with events like Forest of the Imagination, which involves everyone from landscape architects to schools – much more is possible.”

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Bambo Soyinka, Professor and Director of the Research Centre for Transnational Creativity and Education (CentreTrace), knows all about the power of collaboration. Her new project, Paper Nations, will be a partnership between Bath Spa, Bath Festivals and the National Association of Writers in Education.

Soyinka describes it as “a hub that aims to build upon the thriving culture of creative writing within the south-west, so that all children can experience the joys of writing”. Paper Nations secured an Arts Council England grant – one of only two successful bids in the country – for their strategic Creative Writing in Schools fund. Soyinka says: “Bath Spa has a strong literary heritage and some key players in the publishing industry recently moved to the area, a testimony to our burgeoning creative writing culture.”

Vice-Chancellor Professor Christina Slade believes that the University has an active role to play in the region’s creative industries. “Our work at Bath Spa is within the creative industries – conventional streams such as music, art and design, and creative writing, but

STEP 3 Mould into the traditional Bath Bun shape and decorate with your inspiration. Reject the idea of using guitar plectrums in favour of traditional Bath bun candied fruit peel, raisins or sultanas. Sit back and admire your creativity. But best pop down to Sally Lunn’s if you’re planning to eat it.

we’ve also thought hard about what is now required for a career in the creative industries. Our creative computing course is part of that – it marries tech and artistic skills and embeds entrepreneurial training.”

She quotes arts economist Ann Markhusen: “There are seven ways to capitalise on creative talent: know who your artists are; encourage convening and equipment sharing; develop sustainable artist studios; provide entrepreneurial training; build networking opportunities; embed artists in city development strategies; and partner with local arts and policy faculty. We are doing all of these.”

Of course, part of the reason for the explosion is that the south-west is simply a lovely place to live and work. “Creative industry tends to grow in areas where the lifestyle is good,” says Reeve. “This area has a unique combination of beautiful countryside, great cities and towns, thriving culture and easy access to international transport. Creative tech can locate itself anywhere, but this area is attractive to younger people and families.”

19 H O W B AT H W E N T B A - B A - B O O M

“But what’s changed over the past five years is that networking and communication have got a lot better,” continues Reeve. “There are lots of new creative workspaces and events, such as the co-working hub at The Guild, the Bath Guildhall Institute, the new North Quays development and a digital hub being developed in Bristol’s Victoria Street, for example. There’s a feeling that a lot of people are working in overlapping areas. There are all the festivals – of ideas, film, literary, digital. There’s a critical mass of creatives and tech specialists who are connected and work together, advise each other and socialise. It creates a community that is lively and vibrant.”

Dave Jarman mentions “creative tech incubators like HP Labs, the Engine Shed and Set Squared”, and says the scale of Bristol and Bath makes it easy to meet people and then bump into them again. “I think everyone I know braved the rain at last year’s Massive Attack concert,” he laughs.

So what does the future hold for the centre of the creative universe? The relationship between the two

LYDIA WHITMORE

is a still-life specialist who followed up a degree in fine art painting with a fouryear apprenticeship with a photographer. Today she works out of her own studio and says that it is the scary level of control required by still life which holds her attention.

“With still life, I know – almost exactly – what’s going to happen the day before,” she says. Spooky.

cities, says Reeve, is crucial for the area’s future.

“Bath is a small city. There’s a pressure of space once you get past 20 or so employees. I believe we will see the consolidation of a creative corridor from Bath and the North Quays along the River Avon, past the new art and design campus that Bath Spa is developing, to the Engine Shed in Bristol. We also need tech to expand into smaller towns – Keynsham, for example, is five minutes by train from both Bath and Bristol.”

Slade agrees. “The brand identity of the southwest isn’t yet strong enough. We could rival Silicon Valley! We need to go out and make more noise.” She says the Bristol is Open initiative – where Bristol University is making its spare supercomputer available to regional institutions – and the development of a huge data centre in the Corsham Tunnels are projects worth shouting about.

The process of creative noisemaking has certainly begun and, as Jarman says: “It’s even more exciting to be somewhere that is emerging, rather than somewhere that has already arrived.”

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T

Moles will be 40 years young in 2018. And this is its sweaty, loud, guitar-riff-driven history.

WORDS: WILLIAM HAM-BEVAN ILLUSTRATIONS: JIMMY TURRELL

21 S N A K E B I T E , A N YO N E ?

ROCK ON

he Heavy are one of Bath’s most successful musical exports. The four-piece band – comprising vocalist Kelvin Swaby, bass player Spencer Page (Commercial Music, 2005), guitarist Dan Taylor and Chris Ellul (Commercial Music, 2005) on drums – have four albums under their belt, and their funk-rock sound has found favour on both sides of the Atlantic. They have been championed by Rolling Stone and Spin magazines, and featured on the soundtrack to hit TV series including Entourage, The Vampire Diaries and Community. And when the band played their signature song, How You Like Me Now?, on The Late Show with David Letterman, they became the first act ever asked to perform an encore.

That appearance, filmed at the Ed Sullivan Theatre in Manhattan, may well have supplied their biggest-ever audience. But the band owes their very existence to a venue closer to home: Moles, on George Street. “I first came to Bath to go to university in 2002, and it’s one of the first places I went on a night out in town,” says Page. “Being a musician, you want to go to the places where you can see live music, and it seemed to be where everyone went at the weekend.”

Moles soon became more than a social hub for Page. He says: “I ended up working there for six years, and that’s how I met Kelvin – I used to be on the upstairs bar and he’d be DJing there. It transpired that I’d already met Daniel. The three of us became friends and he said, ‘We’ve got this band together and we’re looking for a bass player’. And Bob’s your uncle, I got involved.”

It’s another small fragment of rock history in a venue not short of legendary stories. Moles has welcomed everyone from 80s legends Tears for Fears, the Eurythmics and the Cure to Oasis and arch-rivals Blur, plus their Britpop peers Pulp, Elastica and Suede.

Other acts to have crammed on to the tiny stage include Tori Amos, King Crimson, the Manic Street Preachers, Mumford and Sons, Ed Sheeran and The Killers. It’s where The Smiths played to a crowd of just 40, where Cerys Matthews caused a backstage flood by accidentally pulling a sink off the wall, and where Supergrass posed for the sleeve photo on their debut album I Should Coco. The tales go on and on.

What’s more, generations of students have braved the infamously hot and sweaty atmosphere (now somewhat alleviated by better ventilation). Chris Blanden (Commercial Music, 2006) first went to Moles in 2003 and years later, after a spell at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios, he returned to teach on the same course he had taken.

Blanden says: “One thing that has always amazed me is the fact that they have the vision to book bands quite a long time in advance, just before things really kick off for them. So by the time the bands play at Moles, there’s a real buzz surrounding them. Moles has good vision.”

Like Page and Ellul, former Students’ Union president Bruce Galliver (Commercial Music, 2014), gravitated towards the club soon after he first arrived in 2010. “It was the beating heart of authentic music in Bath,” he says. “There was nowhere like it. The walls upstairs were covered with the names of bands and the dates they’d played

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there. You could see how many nights of partying had gone on there, and you could feel the gravitas that the place carried.”

And although best known as a live venue, Moles has gained almost as much popularity for its club nights, featuring an eclectic set of local DJs. The Big Cheese, playing the sort of chart pop often described as ‘guilty pleasures’, has been tempting Bath Spa students to Moles on a Tuesday night for more than 20 years. Other alumni will recall Stereotypes on a Thursday with greater fondness. “There would be two or three bands and then a DJ,” says Galliver.

“It was always absolutely rammed. That brings back some memories.”

It’s a far cry from the club’s original incarnation as a home for jazz and folk music, with a vegetarian café run by Bath Catering College students upstairs.

Moles was started in 1978 by the 25-year-old entrepreneur Phil Andrews, who took out the lease on 14 George Street using his savings and a loan from friends. It was not an immediate hit, and early gigs sometimes struggled to attract an audience even reaching double figures. But when the club began to book rock acts and put on DJ nights – aided by the installation of a PA system – door takings began to increase.

A later addition to the club was an upstairs recording studio. It was here that Bristol band Portishead defined trip-hop with their Mercury prize-winning album, Dummy. Other users included Spiritualized, Björk, The Coral, Biffy Clyro and Elbow – and Commercial Music students at Bath Spa University. Page says: “They arranged that every band on the course had a free day in Moles to do some recording, so we got to use the studio.”

RISING FROM THE ASHES Having decided to concentrate on his other ventures in Bath, Phil Andrews sold Moles in 2009. But in July 2012, when its owners announced it was going into administration, he stepped back in and formed a 50/50 partnership with long-standing manager Tom Maddicott. Just 19 months later, on the morning of 8 March 2014, Bath woke to the news that smoke had been seen billowing out of the club and fire crews were on the scene.

An electrical fault had caused a small fire that was quickly brought under control. However, initial estimates of the smoke and water damage were hopelessly wide of the mark. Maddicott says: “I remember on the morning of the fire saying to Liam, my operations manager, that it’s going to be at least a fortnight until we can get open again. The 21 months it took was a bit of a shock, to put it mildly. I try to block it out, as it was an intensely stressful time.”

After a total refurbishment, the club rose again in November 2015. “Getting it back open was a huge achievement,” says Maddicott. “It was down to the whole team never giving up. Too many grassroots venues have been lost in the past few years, and there was no way we were going to let Moles be one of them.”

One much-mourned loss in the fire was the wall of band names, but the greatest gigs live on in the ºmemory. Maddicott particularly recalls one night when the regular DJ failed to turn up, and he was forced to make his debut on the decks after the main

Moles was born in 1978 as a jazz and folk club which just happened to have a vegetarian café – run by Bath Catering College students – upstairs.

It was not an immediate hit

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The ceiling is so low that all the atmosphere gets trapped in the room. You can feel, hear and smell that everyone’s having a good time

YOU HAVE TO EARN IT The strong link that has developed between Moles and Bath Spa University is valued by both sides. “It’s incredibly important to us,” says Maddicott. “We have Bath Spa’s only official night in town, and bands from the University playing here pretty much every week. We also assist in the bookings for college events such as the summer ball and freshers’ week.”

For the University’s part, Chris Blanden believes that his students benefit from their visits to Moles, whether they’re down in the audience or up on stage. He says: “Seeing new bands is inspiring, and they’ll always walk away from a gig with their head full of new ideas and inspiration. But playing at Moles is something to aim for. You can’t just walk in off the streets and get a gig there. You have to earn it.”

So what is it that makes Moles so special? For bands such as The Heavy, a great deal of the magic is in the close bond with the audience. Page says: “It’s great when you do the big venues, but I think something gets lost when there are crowd barriers up. You’re playing to a lot of people but you’re missing the interaction with the audience.

“With Moles, they’re literally a foot away from you. The ceiling’s so low that all the atmosphere gets trapped in the room. You can feel, hear and smell that everyone’s having a good time, and that spurs you on to play better.”

Maddicott thinks the secret of Moles’ continuing success is a matter of attitude. He says: “Everyone who works here is passionate about live music and dedicated to putting on the best nights possible. All the bands are very well looked after. We have a dedicated artist liaison whose job is to make sure they have everything they need, and bands remember things like that. When they go on to become big acts, they often come back here when they’re looking to do a more intimate show or a warm-up for a big tour or festival.”

Moles will no doubt continue to move with the times, as it has since it first branched out from its jazz, folk and nut-cutlet roots. But for the moment, Maddicott’s ambition is simple: “I want to keep it going for another 40 years and beyond – and to continue bringing the best bands and DJs to Bath.”

2 5 S N A K E B I T E , A N YO N E ?

JIMMY TURRELL

is a graphic artist best known for his work with leading bands and record labels.

He combines a love of handmade collage, drawing, screenprinting and painting, alongside digital techniques and says he is inspired right now by Erin O’Keefe and early copies of Flipside magazine.

What’s on his playlist? Fade to Mind Records, DJ Rashad and music with weird harp noises and incredibly choppy snares.

act – a rising Manchester band called Oasis. Other memorable nights include a live broadcast by Radio 1’s Annie Mac, and sets from Suede, Slaves and Super Furry Animals that brought the house down.

For Page, one of the most outstanding shows harked back to the club’s original style of music.

“Sunday was Phil’s jazz night. They’d put candles out on the tables, and it wasn’t really my sort of vibe.

But out of the blue, he booked Peter Green [of the original Fleetwood Mac]. I made sure I was working that night, and the place was full up. As soon as he picked the guitar up ... wow. And when he played Albatross, everyone just went silent.”

But as Maddicott explains, Moles is just as much about giving up-and-coming musicians a break. “It’s fantastically rewarding. We always support local bands and give them support slots with major acts as well as showcasing them in their own right. It’s great to see someone you’ve supported for ages finally breaking through and coming back to headline.”

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ccording to Tessa Hadley, “Writing is a bit like being confronted by an ocean – and at first you are paddling around in the froth at the water’s edge. This is particularly true of a first novel. Then when you start writing you become overwhelmed and can’t see the far shore. Yet in reality there is only so much you can fit into one book; even though for the reader a book should feel like a whole universe.”

Hadley, Professor of Creative Writing, successful novelist and recent winner of the WindhamCampbell literary prize as well as the Hawthornden, says getting started on a book can be the hardest thing. And she knows all about rejection. Before the publication of Accidents in the Home in 2002, when she was 46, she had become all too familiar with the polite refusal letters that publishers specialise in.

That year gave her the sense of dedicated time and purpose for her writing that she needed, so that she finally found what she still hesitates to call her ‘voice’. Given the assurance of sense of place and character that pervades her novels (she has now written six, the most recent of which, The Past, was a Waterstone’s book of the month), it seems hard to believe she ever struggled. But when she started the MA she was at the point of giving up.

Her own experience makes her the ideal teacher of creative writing, a role she took up at Bath Spa shortly after her MA, while she was finishing her PhD on Pleasure and Propriety in Henry James.

“I am hugely sympathetic to my students. I know how much is at stake, how difficult it is, how long it can take to find the right way to put your story down. Some writers have a more forceful personality and get there quicker; others have to make more experiments before it becomes clear.

WORDS: SARAH WOODWARD PHOTOGRAPHY: ALUN CALLENDER

TESSA HADLEY

As an English graduate who became a comprehensive school teacher and then a young mother, she wrote novels and short stories with little success. Eventually she decided to do something about it. In 1993 she signed up to take the Creative Writing MA at Bath Spa University (then College).

The course celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, but back then the concept of teaching creative writing was very new, not just to Bath Spa but to the country as a whole. “I was slightly sceptical about it,” says Hadley. “I rather thought, in that old-fashioned way, that writers were born, not made. But I had been trying and failing to write well for some time and felt I had to do something. So when a friend suggested I sign up for the course I went to take a look. And it turned out to be a watershed in my life.”

I don’t believe anyone can get it right straight away.

But, mysteriously, you do eventually find the right way for you – and your readers.”

One of the biggest contributions Hadley believes she can make to her ‘apprentice writers’ is that they become their own readers. “I do a lot of peering over their shoulder at the screen, but what I really want them to do is to peer at the screen more closely themselves. You have to keep asking yourself whether it’s working – and if not, why not?”

The key to her own success, she feels now, was in not trying to write like someone else. “I finally found the confidence to write about my own moment in time,” she says. The Past focuses on a middle-class family thrown together in an inherited house for a three-week summer holiday

27 CLEVER GIRL

Writing is a bit like being confronted by an ocean. Eventually you become overwhelmed and can’t see the far shore

Previous spread: Tessa Hadley in Topping & Company on The Paragon.

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Right: A selection of some of Hadley’s favourite books.

that unfolds slowly into a psychological drama, which her enthusiastic critics have described as Chekhovian. It is no coincidence that Hadley’s own family have a house in the part of the west country she evokes so well – although it’s nothing like the one in the novel – or that there are lots of teenagers and young people in her own life, their influence evident in the subtle interplay between Karim and Molly in the book.

Her previous novel, Clever Girl, tells the story of 50 years in the life of Stella, born in the same year and place (1956, Bristol) as Hadley herself – though she is keen to point out she is nothing like Stella (who has a child before she can go to university, and sees one of her partners murdered).

But perhaps she does equate with Stella when the character reflects that her “memory of the fiction I’d once read was tainted with a suspicion it was written for someone else, someone initiated into a higher order of culture which shut me out”.

Hadley makes sure her readers always feel a part of her story. As honorary Bath Spa graduate Hilary Mantel put it in a review: “Tessa Hadley… is one of those writers a reader trusts.”

Hadley’s students choose their own topic, but her emphasis is that whatever they write about, whether it is 19th century France or the Australian outback, it has to feel real and particular. “The writer has to live that life, to really immerse themselves in it,” she says. “And sometimes my

TESSA HADLEY is the author of six highly praised novels, including Accidents in the Home, Everything Will be All Right, Clever Girl and The Past. In 2016 she won the Hawthornden and a Windham-Campbell Prize.

She is Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa.

students take too much for granted. Just last year, one of them was writing about a small town in Australia that she knew so well herself that she’d simply forgotten to tell the reader anything about it. So we went back there together in her writing and she began to be precise about the place, which gave the piece a new grittiness.”

Hadley particularly enjoys the phase towards the end of the MA when the workshop stage is over and the teaching moves to one-to-one. “The students may say I am really pushing them, but I am often surprised by how little they know about their whole book – what’s to come, beyond what they’ve written.

So we talk about what happens in the first third, then the middle, then the last third. I like that proportional sense of what happens next.”

Not that she herself always plans everything out before she starts. When it came to The Past, Hadley admits she decided only late on in her writing to add the clever middle of the book, which steps back in time to introduce the reader to the grandparents who bequeathed the family house around which the novel is centred, and to the mother of the middleaged children now enjoying their last summer there.

It’s a structure which she acknowledges she borrowed “shamelessly” from The House in Paris by one of her literary heroines, Elizabeth Bowen, whose “densely written prose, with its spiky and audacious sentences, thrills me and helps my own writing to rise to the occasion”.

Right: Hadley’s notebook, which rarely leaves her side and is used to capture thoughts and future story ideas.

I rather thought, in that old-fashioned way, that writers were born not made

For her own students the end must always be very much in sight. “One of the special features of the Bath Spa MA is that we push people to be well on their way to finishing their novel by the end of the course.

“And one of our great advantages is that we have wonderful contacts in the world of publishing and agents. We take the business side very seriously. Of course, we aren’t teaching people to just write commercial novels. But you can be both a serious writer and workmanlike.”

Hadley understands all too well the clash between what she describes as “the sometimes slightly brutal world of publishing and the gorgeous world of getting it right on the page”. She was delighted to receive the Windham-Campbell literary prize, which came as a complete surprise to her as it is not an award you enter.

“Although I had been on lots of longlists and shortlists, I hadn’t won anything until then, and I was beginning to worry that my publishers would become disenchanted with me. The prize was a confirmation and strengthened my sense that readers could hear what I was saying.”

Tessa Hadley, with her everyday realism, has sometimes been described as writing against fashion. Her sales figures would indicate otherwise.

But much more important to her is the pleasure in the act of writing itself. And when she can help her students towards that too, she is even happier.

29 CLEVER GIRL

Hadley is a strong believer in literary role models and encourages her students to have a book open on their desk and to practise writing in the style of others to find their own way. But she also recognises that while there may be a huge range of writers you love, perhaps only three or four will be really useful to you. “I relish the writing of Penelope Fitzgerald (an even later starter, whose first book, The Golden Child, was published when she was 60), but I know she’s bad for me, I can’t seem to take anything from her.”

Hadley separates her teaching from her own writing. “In the greedy way of an author, I try to keep my own writing watertight. Obviously, I bring my own experience to bear when I am with my students, but I also love the private, magical solitariness of writing.” She is not, though, one of those writers who shut themselves away for months on end when they are working on a book. “Now that I have found the blessed key to becoming a writer, I just want to be doing it all the time. So I write whenever I am not doing anything else.”

Which means whenever possible first thing in the morning, before looking at emails. She finds it can take her an hour from when she sits down at her computer to cross the threshold back into the book. “Then for a while I am unstoppable. After about four hours of writing time, though, I find myself becoming less productive so I stop and start doing something else.”

Inspiration is for slackers

Because practice – when you feel like it and when you don’t – is what the professionals do.

We look at the art of getting it right.

WORDS: LUCY JOLIN

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ILLUSTRATION: HANNA MELIN

T

hose at the very top of their field, we imagine, must practise their arts in ways that soar above the workaday world. A frenzied, alcohol-fuelled 24-hour painting session in a colour-spattered studio, maybe. A solitary, starving novelist writing furiously in a room of her own. A fitness regime that involves mountains and backpacks full of rocks.

Yet for Sir Anthony Caro, the father of modern British sculpture, practice was rooted in that most everyday of rituals: the tea break. “At 11am and 4pm daily, Tony Caro and his studio assistants would have a tea break,” says Jenny Dunseath, artist, sculptor and Senior Lecturer in Fine Art. “The discussion would always turn to what they were working on in their studios or the exhibitions that they had just seen.”

The shared space and time became a community of learning, a focus of a shared discussion around each other’s work. “Tony was particularly keen to find out what people were doing and why they were doing it – and what was coming next,” says Dunseath.

“That contributed towards his currency as an artist, and it also propelled many of the assistants as well. It’s actually very like the group critique scenarios we have at university. We get a group of students together to talk about a piece of work. They get feedback and input from their peer group; they critique, break down and work through the impacts and influences surrounding a piece of work. It’s all tea break discussion.”

Practice is a hard word to pin down. Sometimes, it’s something that has to be done: the boring part

that’s necessary to produce something exceptional.

“It’s work,” says Chris North (Music, 2011), saxophonist and occasional vocalist with alternative hip-hop/soul band Sounds of Harlowe. “Practice is when you do all the hard stuff that sometimes you don’t enjoy that much – going over scales and chord structures. It’s the roots of becoming a better musician, and these roots aren’t necessarily the most fun part.” But sometimes, it’s something that goes to the very heart of who you are, and what you do, and separating practice from what your craft actually is becomes impossible.

For Dunseath, practice itself is something to be studied and to work at – practising to become better at practice. Her own interest in practice informs how she creates her own art and goes beyond, into the dynamics of practice as an art in itself. Artist Boss, her book on the relationship between Caro and his studio assistants, throws new light on how observing another’s practice can help your own.

“The experience of working for Caro gave his assistants an insight into the professional art world,” says Dunseath. “That kind of experience can’t necessarily be obtained through art school education.

They saw the need for hard work, every day, working through ideas. And it gave them an approach – not necessarily the effect of using a particular material, but a kind of methodology around the progression of sculpture, taking risks, progressing something, never resting on the safety of what has gone before.

And I think that’s what constitutes good practice: persistence, continual engagement and challenge.”

Practice is when you do all the hard stuff that you maybe don’t enjoy that much.

But it can go to the very heart of who you are and what you do

31 W H E R E D O YO U D O YO U R S ?

years that they just do. They don’t know why they do them, or why they work. But when they’re asked to reflect on them, they become obvious.

“By engaging teachers in conversation and asking questions, we can draw out what has become an unconscious competence, so it becomes conscious again,” says Nick Sorensen, Associate Dean at the Institute for Education. He specialises in the everyday practice of teachers and leaders and is also an accomplished jazz saxophonist.

“The notion of the reflective practitioner is now a big part of education. In fact, a necessary part of every practice is that you are able to take stock and see what you are doing, what you are doing well and what you need to work on. When we ask someone to write a reflective case study, we are asking them to tell their story: How did you become a teacher? How did you become a leader? Who were the significant people on your journey? What were the significant things you did? It’s trying to connect people to their values and beliefs so that practice is not just what they do but it’s an expression of the things that are really important to them.”

And one kind of practice can influence another.

Improvisation is the lifeblood of jazz, and Sorensen borrowed ideas from his own saxophone practice to use when thinking about its importance in teaching.

You can only improvise when you’ve put in those hours: a glorious flight of fancy needs to spring from a solid foundation.

“I reflect on my practice as a musician to explore what I’m doing and what works and what doesn’t work.

For Sir Anthony Caro, father of British sculpture, practice was rooted in that most everyday of rituals: the tea break

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Other people are an essential part of this kind of practice – exploding another myth, that of the solitary genius – and this is never more apparent than when they’re in a band. When Sounds of Harlowe practise together, says North, sparks inevitably fly. But it’s all part of the creative process.

“There are always tensions when we practise.

Definitely. It gets heated. But that’s because everyone is trying to produce a piece of work that they feel happy with. Things get passionate because it’s something we are passionate about.

“Maybe you think the bridge goes on for too long, or we should add another chorus, and the other guys don’t agree. But that means the end product is better.

I don’t know any musicians who haven’t had a falling out – but we are stronger as a band as a result.” But he admits that closeness isn’t always productive. When the band lived together, the wrong kind of tensions ended up in practice sessions.

“You end up with a situation where someone hasn’t done the washing up – and you bring those resentments into the rehearsal room, where they have no place being. That doesn’t help practice. We’re all living in our own places now, which has improved our relationships no end.”

But practice is also something you can reflect on, yourself – although many of us don’t until we’re told that we can. Sometimes it’s hard to realise exactly what we’re doing that’s working, or not working, because we’re too busy doing it. Teaching is a case in point: many experienced teachers have ‘tacit knowledge’ – techniques they have learned over the

HANNA MELIN

is a Swedish-born illustrator who puts humour at the heart of her work. For this set of images she took inspiration from writer Lucy Jolin’s copy.

Previous page, left: “You can only improvise when you have put in those hours.” Previous page, right: “Performance is not just about training the body, but also the mind.”

Opposite: “We draw out what has become an unconscious competence.” Overleaf: Sir Anthony Caro takes tea with fellow artists.

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I can take that understanding and apply it to professional practice: the way that leaders relate to followers and the way that teachers engage with students in the learning process. Both of those areas have their own sense of mystery about them: how, as a leader, do you get people together? How do you fire a child’s imagination?”

What of the famous ‘10,000 hours’ theory (which has its roots in a paper written by psychologist K Anders Ericsson in 1993)? Ericsson discussed the work of Berlin psychologists who had studied how violin students practised: the best students averaged more than 10,000 hours by the time they had reached 20, while the others had an average of about 4,000 hours.

The idea that innate ability may play less of a role than intense practice was later popularised by writer Malcolm Gladwell in his bestselling book, Outliers.

(Ericsson, incidentally, rebuffed Gladwell’s idea as an over-simplification: he pointed out that the practice also needs to be of good quality and also that the 10,000 hours figure he obtained by interviewing musicians was actually just an average, with some top performers practising far more or less.)

Certainly, putting in the hours is something that’s familiar to Jason Gardener MBE (Media Communications and Sociology, 2003), President of UK Athletics and Olympic gold medallist. Every athlete knows the importance of dissecting a performance, searching for evidence of weakness or a missed opportunity. “You come back,” he says, “and you do things differently. You get up, and you try again.”

Gardener believes that ‘purposeful practice’ is the key, rather than just putting in the hours, as is the help of others. “Looking back at my career, it took working with people who know what it takes to achieve really successful results.

“People can practise and think they are working towards a goal and then find out that actually, all that hard work didn’t get them the outcome they required.

There is an art to being your best when it matters most. You could have two athletes who are very talented and do the same training programme but perform very differently.”

Performance at this level is also not just about training the body – at his peak, Gardener was training intensely for six days a week – but the mind. There is now far more focus, he says, on the psychological side of practice, enabling athletes not just to perform, but perform when it really matters.

Dunseath agrees: truly meaningful practice, whether it’s self-reflection, bashing away at a scale or interval training on the track, is never just a matter of putting in the hours. If you are just continually slogging away, and not reflecting or questioning or developing, then those hours will get you nowhere, she says. “Which is why that kind of importance of the criticality and questioning of what you are doing and how you are doing it, rather than just doing it, is so key. You have to stop, have a break, reflect, work things out again and question them.” A worthy alternative to Gladwell’s theory, perhaps: the ‘10,000 cups of tea’ rule. Sir Anthony Caro, one senses, would have approved.

There is now far more focus on the psychological side of practice, enabling athletes not just to perform but to perform when it really matters

35 W H E R E D O YO U D O YO U R S ?

We

are

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friends I

What is it really like collaborating with friends? We ask business partners and artistic teams what happens when your work and your social support system collide.

WORDS: OLIVIA GORDON PORTRAITS: NICK DOLDING

Right: Tamsin Kennard and Lizzy Cummins from Hammerpuzzle

t starts with a plan written on the back of an envelope over a glass or two of wine and ends in work that can cover you in glory – or end in tears.

Collaborating with your friends is arguably the most natural thing. They see things from your point of view, they (mostly) think you are not nuts, and, above all, they are in the right place at the right time. But it’s not without its risks.

In business, for instance, the trust between friends gets tested, as Niamh Handley-Vaughan (Performing Arts, 2012) stresses. “The hardest challenge of working with a friend is the new pressures you are sharing.”

Handley-Vaughan launched Paper Doll Productions with University friend Becky Molloy (Performing Arts, 2012), staging plays and regular music and comedy nights. “The first shows were

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incredibly scary,” says Handley-Vaughan. “We were on edge as soon as the doors opened, clutching each other and our wine glasses, hoping people would turn up. We both got more stressed than we should have, and for the first time we were seeing that side of each other. I got a bit snappy, but instantly regretted it. ‘Oh god,’ I thought, ‘I just snapped at my friend!’

“We were finding a new friendship in which we were more comfortable with each other. Even though it was hard, it was nice knowing we had a good enough friendship that we could be a bit of an idiot and were still going to be there for each other.” The support of working with a friend also taught Handley-Vaughan to be sanguine about the reality of launching a business: “Something going wrong didn’t mean the show was ruined. If we spent hours agonising over every little decision – as we were both prone to doing when we started – then we’d never get anything done.”

“We both slogged it as jobbing actors for a while before Niamh got fed up and approached me about starting our own production company so we could take back some control of our careers,” says Molloy.

“Niamh knew I was a control freak, like her.”

Nowadays the pair can see when each other is getting stressed and know what to do. “I get a look in my eye and start talking fast, so Becky reassures me,” says Handley-Vaughan. “While if Becky’s hungry, nothing’s going to work out; I have to make sure she is fed! We’re closer now than when we started.”

SHARED PASSIONS Another pair of Performing Arts graduates, Lizzy Cummins (Performing Arts, 2007) and Tamsin Kennard (Performing Arts, 2007) say running a business with a friend – especially one you met at university, training in the same industry – makes perfect sense. They are co-directors of theatre company Hammerpuzzle.

“We share the same ideals, ethics, thoughts and passions, so we don’t often come up against terrible disagreements,” says Cummins. “We never run out of things to say or feel we spend too much time together.

“We make sure we always put first what is best for the company and the people we work with. We also have to be honest. We never let anything tricky sit and get worse – we always make time to talk it through.”

NICK DOLDING started taking pictures in the 1980s, and the images on these pages are an extension of his Cut Ups series, originally created in collaboration with art director Guy Merrill. Dolding says: “In an age where more pictures are taken every day than used to be taken in a whole lifetime, I’ve never grown tired of photography.”

Right: Becky Molloy and Niamh Handley-Vaughan from Paper Doll Productions

When creative collaborations expand from a back-of-an-envelope venture with a friend to managing employees and handling complex finances, things get more complicated. Paper Doll Productions started with a phone call and a chat over dinner. But with growth comes more responsibility, admits Molloy. “We appreciate the value of working with other professionals and paying for services they specialise in, instead of muddling through everything by ourselves. We want to ensure we can always maintain professionalism.”

Dividing tasks according to each friend’s strengths is a wise strategy, as Handley-Vaughan points out: “Becky will think ahead with ideas for what we should do in the future, which I wouldn’t naturally consider.

I’ve learned Becky’s good at seeing the long-term picture – organising, networking, spreadsheets, invoicing and getting everything sorted. Becky’s much more practical about stuff like expenses paperwork – she’s always reminding me about that!

“I’m good at the short term: keeping the ball rolling daily; arranging a call or meet-up; and giving us deadlines to make sure the next thing gets done.

I knew when we started that Becky had a good head, but now I really know her strengths.”

Meanwhile at Hammerpuzzle, Kennard is Artistic Director and “the creative brain”, while Cummins is Company Director and runs the business. But both know the value of seeing the lighter side. “The Hammerpuzzle team have always been good at encouraging each other through stressful times with playfulness,” says Kennard, recalling the Edinburgh Fringe 2011, when the company was performing two shows a day in two different venues. “We would regularly make up songs and games to keep up morale – they were hilarious to us but perhaps not to anyone else. Working with friends means you can have a trusting and supportive relationship, but have a lot of fun together as well.”

Of course the division of labour doesn’t always make for smooth relationships. Alumnae Libby Harris (Creative Writing, 2010) and Kate MorrisDouble (MRes English Literature, 2009) discovered a shared love of Julia Roberts films, tacky magazine quizzes and young adult books while working as booksellers at Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights

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bookshop in Bath. They recently launched Book Box Club, a young adult book subscription box and online book club, but each has to juggle the business with their respective ‘day’ jobs.

“We’re both very understanding of what we’re able to achieve in the time that we have,” says Morris-Double, “but sometimes it’s difficult to not feel guilty if Libby gets lots done because she has a day off and I don’t.”

Morris-Double is now Mr B’s Emporium’s Assistant Manager, while Harris has a full-time job as a primary school Teaching Assistant in Essex.

A long-distance, 7pm-midnight working relationship for them means a weekly two-hour phone meeting and nightly messaging on WhatsApp. They only get together in person once a month.

“We do a lot of work on the business at weekends and the inbox builds up on Monday when everyone else goes back to work but we’re doing our other jobs.

With both of us working full-time, we each get different pockets of availability.” Ultimately though, Morris-Double knows Harris doesn’t begrudge her when she’s busy – and vice versa. “We have a working culture of ‘extreme looking out for each other’, congratulating one another when we do something well, and not being too hard on ourselves when things don’t go to plan.”

FINDING TIME FOR FUN During one session taking Instagram photos for social media marketing, the Book Box Club duo found themselves perching awkwardly on the edge of Morris-Double’s bath in a stray patch of light, straining to make a photo look casual and stylish.

“All the giggling made for very shaky camera work and I don’t think those particular shots ever made the cut,” reflects Harris. “But it didn’t matter. The thing about starting a business with a friend is that such moments end with getting the giggles rather than a telling-off from a manager.”

Morris-Double thinks working as far as possible in advance is the key when collaboration is long-distance, but even with a friend’s support, she says, one can easily underestimate how much time it takes to launch a business. “If we could go back in time, we’d have allowed more than five months before our website

You have to be honest. We can’t let anything tricky sit and get worse – you have to make time to talk it through

launch in July. We’re still working on the website now and it would have been good to have that done before getting into the nitty gritty of day-to-day stuff.”

One way forward is that friendship collaborations don’t need to be limited to just one buddy. As they have expanded, Paper Doll Productions and Hammerpuzzle have often employed other friends they made studying together at university – “they’re able to slot into our way of working and thinking easily,” notes Molloy. Of course, some employees aren’t already friends, and Handley-Vaughan adds: “Any collaborators, whether we’re friends with them before or not, are given a defined role so we can work as a team.”

The other hurdle that can come with the growth of a business with a friend is not having much time to enjoy non-working life any more – could the original friendship get lost in a tide of tax-returns? One of the hardest things for Harris is “finding time to hang out with each other and not talk about Book Box Club”.

She admits: “It has been a while since we spent an evening in each other’s company without taking Instagram photos or discussing upcoming books or brainstorming ideas. It’s sometimes difficult to step back and just ask each other about what they had for dinner or how their day off was.”

But teaming up can motivate friends in ways they might not dream of alone. “I feel a lot of pressure to get stuff done well, as I don’t want to let Niamh down,” says Molloy. “If I was trying to create shows on my own, I simply wouldn’t do it. My advice to others is to work with your friends – you’ll work hard with them.”

And while it may not always be roses, that friendship is a great foundation, says Molloy. “I have to be honest – we normally resolve our disagreements with wine.”

Ultimately, professional friendships can be long-lasting and lead in powerful directions. Book Box Club was dreamed up during a sleepover on a particularly grey midweek January day.

“Reminiscing about how much fun we used to have working together at the bookshop, we started dreaming up elaborate ways to spend our days together again,” recalls Morris-Double. “We had so much fun brainstorming. I’m not sure if the sense of having fun with a friend has worn off yet – I hope it never does.”

BRUEGEL

DEFINING A DYNASTY 11 February to 4 June 2017

PRINCIPAL SPONSOR

WWW.HOLBURNE.ORG

Why building a connected community is vital Vice-Chancellor Professor Christina Slade says a successful blend of heritage and new thinking has won Bath Spa a place at the top table.

PORTRAIT: SAM KERR

Creative companies are not bound by borders or culture. They thrive on shared knowledge and expertise

Only then can we offer the best experience for students who, as graduates, will work in a world where economy and commerce, as well as art and culture, are truly global.

One initiative aimed at developing international networking and collaboration is the Global Academy of Liberal Arts (GALA). This was the first collaboration of its kind and brings together a diverse range of liberal arts providers from around the world.

I founded GALA in 2014 to create a global community of creative people and to explore the relationship between creativity and social engagement. GALA aims to prepare our students and graduates for work across the creative industries, as well as global citizenship and intercultural education.

Higher education in the UK is entering a challenging time, with the implications of the UK leaving the EU and increased competition for students not yet fully known. I have no doubt that we at Bath Spa will work together to meet these challenges, while retaining the creative spirit that makes our community so attractive to students.

Our connected, creative community is unique. We have built on the tradition of our founding institutions to become one of the leading universities for creativity, culture and enterprise.

This successful blending of heritage and new thinking brings to mind the ethos of other great UK higher education institutions, including Oxford and Cambridge. Indeed, one might regard Bath Spa as the ‘Oxbridge for the liberal arts’.

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ere at Bath Spa University, our students are exposed to creative practitioners and researchers who are enterprising in their approach to teaching. Through a creative curriculum that encourages entrepreneurial thought, our students are better enabled to enter successful careers within pioneering companies or as freelance creatives. Bath Spa graduates are socially engaged global citizens who meet the needs of the creative industries in the UK, across Europe and beyond.

The creative industries are worth £84bn a year to the UK economy with exports that span film, music, gaming and publishing (to name but a few). Creativity and enterprise are thriving in the south-west and attract many bright minds. Those coming here work not only in the hub cities of Bristol and Bath, but also across the region, which is dominated by entrepreneurial micro-businesses and freelancers in everything from animation to software development.

This adds a rich diversity to local economies as a key part of a wider supply chain that has the potential to drive job creation in many sectors.

Creatives and the companies they work in, or lead, are not bound by borders or culture. They thrive on shared knowledge and expertise, so it is now more vital than ever before that universities are developing graduates who will ensure the UK’s creative industries continue to be our largest export and have a positive impact on long-term economic prosperity.

The challenge for us is to ensure that higher education is not confined to geographic boundaries.

T AT WORK TERRY POPE The inventor traces his interest in optical devices back to his experiences at Corsham Court.

WORDS: KATE HILPERN

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PORTRAIT: BEN MOSTYN

here were, says artist and inventor Terry Pope (Construction, 1962), three remarkable art schools of the 20th century: Bauhaus in Germany, Black Mountain College in New York and Corsham Court in the UK. “I feel incredibly fortunate to have attended the last, as it was utterly unique,” he says.

“They brought in all these renowned practising artists who treated us kids like equals, which became totally normal to us. It had the effect of bringing us up to their level, as well as instilling in us a real work ethic.”

Pope’s first year at Corsham was “a remarkable year of discovery in which we did textiles, landscape studies, sculpture, painting, drawing, music and drama”. After that, he was told his timetable would be cleared so he could get on and make the kind of constructions and devices that would go on to form his life’s work.

“I began my second year in a studio run by the constructionist artist John Ernest, who presented us with fascinating and demanding projects involving perception theory and mathematics – and, crucially, perceptive critiques of our work.

“It was he who first offered me an analytical framework with which to design a visual language. And it was at this time I asked the question: ‘I wonder what the world would look like if my eyes were in different positions’, which led to the development of my first optical device, the hyperscope.”

Clockwise from top left: A selection of everyday items from Pope’s workshop, including: a small experimental pseudoscopic target; a red MX3 pseudoscope device; and an assortment of tools used in the development of his inventions.

Ever since then – the late 1950s – Pope has continued to devote his artistic career to the concept of space, both through his constructions, which are works of art in their own right, and his optical devices, which often lead to the discovery of something previously unnoticed.

As anyone who has viewed Pope’s work will testify, it can require a little patience and concentration for the seemingly invisible patterns, colours and shapes to reveal themselves – but in many cases, it leads to something the viewer could never have imagined.

As Pope explains, he is behind four main optical devices: “The hyperscope, which gives enhanced stereoscopic perception; the pseudoscope, which turns space back to front by switching the eyes right to left and left to right; the cyclopter, which puts both optical paths together so that you see as if with one eye in the middle of your forehead, enabling you to see the virtual space in renaissance paintings; and a fourth device with which you can see the curvature of the Earth – though I don’t think I’ll ever get that into production.”

As for his construction work, he says: “They are not like paintings or sculptures. They are a formal approach to visual problems, in which I try to direct attention at unusual experiences of space that are special and beautiful. The optical devices are the spin offs from that.”

When Pope’s three years at Corsham eventually drew to an end, it was Ernest who helped arrange for him to study at the Royal Academy in the Hague on a government scholarship. “Then, when I returned to England, aged 22, I got the first of many teaching posts in different universities, although it was Reading University where I eventually settled in 1968, and where I remained teaching until I retired.

Reading provided a great context because I had access to other subjects like maths and psychology.”

By the mid-1970s, Pope’s optical devices were regularly being developed alongside his constructions – and he became increasingly well-known for projects that aimed to discover the limits of the human visual system. “It was around then that the Science Museum bought one of my optical devices, although they’re now in many science collections around the world.”

Even now, Pope is highly disciplined in his work, which he does from a studio in his garden in Cornwall.

“That was Corsham,” he laughs. “I remember being interviewed by Howard Hodgkin, who was incredibly strict. It wasn’t even acceptable to turn up two minutes late – and many times, we were expected to stay up overnight if that’s what it took to finish work off for the next morning. That discipline stuck and I still stay up all night if I have to.” Corsham, he says, only ever had 1,200 students. “But it put a stamp on education for the rest of the century.”

TERRY POPE Inventor Terry Pope heads Phantascope (www.phantascope.co.uk), a company making optical devices for ‘hands on’ interactive science exhibitions and art/science research.

His two phantascopes, the hyperscope and the pseudoscope, improve the visibility of otherwise hard-to-see objects. He is based in St Austell, Cornwall.

4 5 AT W O R K

ADVENTURES IN...

ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES Professor Kate Rigby says that natural disasters are more man-made than they seem.

WORDS: LUCY JOLIN

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ILLUSTRATION: SUPERMUNDANE

J

ust as the Inuit people of the Arctic have no single word for snow, the languages spoken

by Australian Aborigines have no one word corresponding to ‘nature’. Rather, explains Kate Rigby, Professor of Environmental Humanities, they speak of ‘country’ – a place made up of all the things that inhabit it: rivers, rocks, woods, plants and humans.

It matters how we talk about the things with which we share our planet, says Rigby. Her most recent book, Dancing with disaster: Environmental histories, narratives and ethics for perilous times, questions the concept of natural disasters. “It’s actually quite a modern phrase,” she says. “It conveys the idea that disasters are entirely caused by nature ‘out there’, and that humans don’t have any responsibility for whether a particular event in nature is catastrophic or manageable.

“From around 2000, Australia has been experiencing more and more heatwaves and wildfires.

We’ve always been prone to fires and floods – it’s normal. But the frequency and intensity are

The vast environmental challenges we face have come from complex economic, political and cultural factors

increasing and this is thought to be connected with climate change.

“These events keep being referred to as ‘natural disasters.’ And this is very worrying, as it stops us from acknowledging human responsibility for creating the conditions in which these natural extremes are becoming worse. It also enables us to duck responsibility in both preparing for these extremes and challenging the way that we live.”

Rigby’s book examines disasters from the Black Death of the Middle Ages to the mega-hurricanes of the 21st century, seen through the prism of the literature they inspired. This view, she says, helps us to think about these events in a more complex way, around natural, cultural and human involvement.

“Look at the media reporting of disasters. The language is all ‘nature’s fury’. It’s completely the wrong way of thinking about it. It’s blaming nature when we have to look to ourselves – the way we are living and supporting ourselves. We forget all the non-human victims of these events – the wild animals, the farm stock, the pets and the plant life.

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Nature becomes something that works against humanity – an enemy to be fought.”

When non-human things aren’t seen as the enemy, Rigby points out, they are assumed to be things that are there for our use. New terms have grown up around environmental awareness: ecosystem services, natural capital, natural resources.

“These words have been developed to try and put monetary value on these things we are dependent on.

On the one hand, they are strategically valuable. On the other, they just deepen this view of nature as simply there for human benefit. We need to partner with our Earth others in trying to keep the world liveable and have a sense of collective flourishing.”

Environmental Humanities is a relatively young inter- and transdisciplinary research field, born in the early 1990s from existing lines of inquiry in disciplines ranging from philosophy to geography, ecology to anthropology. “It really looks at the ways in which we interact with the natural world – how the natural world is shaped by our culture and the way our culture is informed by our relations with one

SUPERMUNDANE Rob Lowe (real name) is an artist and typographer whose signature mesmeric drawings have been published and exhibited worldwide.

Lowe recently visited Bath Spa to meet Graphics Communications students and talk about, among other things, pre-digital design, the Ministry of Sound and what is perhaps the world’s only song about kerning, entitled Close But Never Touching.

another, but also with non-human others like rocks, rivers and mountains,” says Rigby. “For example, one of the reasons why the US got to be such a populous and powerful nation was the fact that the great plains in the mid-west were able to grow wheat. In Australia, you see a very different settlement pattern because two thirds of the continent is very arid and not suitable for agriculture, so the population remained very small.”

And it has a part to play in helping us think about the vast environmental challenges that humanity is facing, she says. Climate change, biodiversity loss and plastic pollution of the oceans are not just technical problems. They have come from complex economic, political and cultural factors, and they raise questions about our underlying values and beliefs.

“Many problems have been allowed to escalate because the state of the plants and animals and ecosystems has not been considered worthy of consideration.” says Rigby. “The humanities raise questions about these assumptions, our attitudes and our values, and how we inhabit this world.”

ON THE BUSES FESTIVALS Third-year Theatre Production student Sally Wattiaux talks amps, cables and mud in the time it takes to travel from Newton Park to Bath.

WORDS: KATE HILPERN

S PA I S S U E 01

PORTRAIT: NAOMI WOOD

A

n hour after I pitched my tent on a staff campsite at Glastonbury on Sunday morning, it started raining so badly that I had to hide in someone’s caravan. But that’s Glastonbury for you!

I couldn’t believe my luck when I got accepted to do work experience as a production assistant at the UK’s biggest festival, part of a collaboration project on my Theatre Production course. Being from Geneva, I’d never been before – and here was I not only attending, but also providing technical support to ensure all the performances in The Glade area – composed of multiple stages, including a main one, plus a bar – ran like clockwork.

The whole stint was nine days and kicked off with ensuring the area was safe for the punters to arrive on the Wednesday. By Tuesday, the lighting equipment and big screen had arrived, so we were kept busy setting it all up and cabling it. Then on Wednesday, we sorted the sound equipment, along with some serious mud digging. I loved every minute, particularly as I’d specialised in lighting and sound on my course.

The best part, though, was the festival itself, when we assisted the acts with sound checks, did regular health and safety checks, dealt with the changeovers of the acts and ensured people who needed to could get backstage. We had quite a few DJs, including Carl Cox, as well as bands including the Gentlemen’s Dub Club. Watching the backstage professionals at work,

The generator went down and the backup hadn’t been switched on.

There was no light and sound for about 10 minutes

and getting to genuinely contribute to the end result, was such a buzz. I found myself in awe of the sheer scale of the festival.

Not that it all went swimmingly. There was one moment when the generator went down. Usually, the back-up generator kicks in, but it hadn’t been switched on by the site electricians. There was no light and no sound for about 10 minutes and we all panicked as the audience started to walk towards other areas. But they quickly returned in the mood to dance.

There was lots of banter backstage, which was fun, and there were some funny moments too, especially when people got covered in mud. By the Sunday night, when the audiences had gone home, it was a case of derigging, putting everything away for next year and making sure the site was tidy.

By this time, it struck me how much I’d been taken out of my comfort zone – at one point having to rewire half the LED screen under pressure and, another time, being left by one of the VJs to use the software, even though I’d never done anything like that before.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll feel the music and get through it.” And he was right. I enjoyed working in live entertainment so much that I’ve done other live work since – thanks to the contacts I made – and I’ve also been asked to work on Glastonbury again this year. I think festivals and other live work is where my future now lies.