Cover Feature
Is play gender specific? Vin Callan from Childs Play UK queries whether play and gender are connected… on Clapham Common in 1989 an ice cream van pulled up to sell to the queue and we realised that we had discovered a new way to vastly increase and widen the audiences for contemporary music. Now – 29 years later – Eye Music Trust is a regularly-funded Arts Council organisation with four different sizes of specialist Colourscape structures designed for music and workshop presentations. When can we get some more of this colour therapy? Colourscape now has three regular nine-day festivals in Waddesdon Manor (May / June), Holburne, Bath (late August) and Clapham Common (mid-September). Each one is shown in a different size of Colourscape with the largest being Clapham at a one-acre 95-chamber structure and Waddesdon, a purpose-made mid-size structure. Other one-day and weekend events happen around the country. In 2018: Sevenoaks; Birmingham; Buckfastleigh; Corby; Winchester; Lewisham; Bristol. In 2019 there may be other new venues. For up-to-date information about Colourscape, visit www.eyemusic.org.uk 14 |
| thelittlethingsmagazine.com
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hat are the clearest play memories you have with you mum? Was it sewing, cooking, knitting, arts and crafts, reading and storytelling? What are the clearest memories you have of playing with your dad? Was it wrestling, football, rugby, den-making, tree-climbing, making weapons, using drills or screwdrivers? Was it because that’s what they enjoyed doing? Was it cultural? Biological? Or, was it due to who went out to work and who stayed at home? Speaking to a small number of grandparents, I asked them what their memories where. Overwhelmingly, they told me that their mum would do arts and craft, baking and sewing and their dad would have the kids helping to fix the car. Interestingly this was the same regardless of the their gender – girls would also help dad with the car and boys would bake with mum. This was much the same as my upbringing – boxing, wrestling and fixing bikes with my dad and drawing and baking with my mum. But things were a little different when it came to spending time with my brothers. Our house was full of Action Men, Evel Knievel, Batman and Robin, Spiderman and the Fonz. We had
