This is a story about a story...and which includes many stories... I had written a shorter version of my ‘Letter from Beeston’ on 14th May entitled ‘How my garden is helping me at the moment’ because it became my entry to BBC TV The One Show - RHS - My Chelsea Garden competition with ONE photograph of my garden. On Friday 22nd May, the four category winners were announced and interviewed on The One Show by Alex Jones, Rylan Clark-Neal and guest Monty Don. Alex reported that the competition had received 7,500 entries so final selection was VERY difficult! I can well imagine Alex and Monty! When the four category winners were declared I was NOT surprised I hadn’t won! They were amazing and very worthy indeed of their prize winning tickets to The Chelsea Flower Show 2021. Here they are: Back Garden Winner. Terry Winters from Salisbury. Terry said: “I'm lucky to have a garden, many don't... Indoor Garden Winner. Corinne Tokley-Packer from Tilbury. ... Kids Corner Garden Winner. Clare and Henry Shepherd from Barnsley. ... Front Garden Winner. Rosemary Fletcher from Dunstable. You can watch the programme here https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000jbtz/the-one-show-22052020
So, I wondered, why not now extend my original entry and write more about why my garden has helped me at the moment? This time, it includes personal characters I always remember when looking at my garden, namely, my Mum and Dad, and my dog TAG. So ‘My Letter from Beeston’ 3 evolved. Here it is with photograph and my story told in word and voice. Enjoy!
‘Letter from Beeston’ by Marysia Zipser
letter_from_beeston.3.m4aDownload File My garden is an inspiration for my visioning and planning. Nature, spatial awareness, Colours, Composition, Balance, Harmony, Solitude, Sanctuary. It becomes a canvas and palette on which my life conjures up and mixes natural lights, tints and shading. My garden becomes my journey. During the present time, my garden has helped me focus on what matters most in life and what I wish to activate. From my writing and crafting to friendly everyday thoughts. Who, what and which to dismiss or weed out to make the pathway clearer and grabbing opportunities as they fall in front of me. I have flowery reminders of my parents. My mum’s Hanky Panky rose has been flourishing and always brings big smiles. Her garden bench is now cornflower blue so I visualise her sitting and winking at me while sipping from her china mug of English tea. Dad was an engineer so he was the master landscaper and builder. He could build anything...from the large garage, the tall welded driveway gates, the apple and plum orchard, to the tennis court at our Gamston ‘Green Acres’ home. I can see him now smiling, mowing the vast expanse of lawn in between, before we held a fun garden or tennis party.
My own garden gate leads out to a park so my ‘garden room’ becomes an extension; enabling me to follow green pathways and a twitchell to our canal and river sides.
Memories too, of Gentleman Tag, my English wire-haired fox terrier, with sticky up ears, just like Herge drew Snowy’s Tin Tin. He would look up at me from a sunny spot cocooned among the lavenders, questioning, “So when are we going into the park Miss Zippy? I so want to meet my friends there, run and jump about with them...and play tag games.”
He would spark up and ask, “And... when are we going on our adventures again to historic places and parklands, and us prospecting and peering over the castle turrets??” Adventures indeed, dear Tag.
For now, I just can't wait to see my Triffid-like Cardinal clematis unlock and open as well as the rambling Augustine roses, geraniums and smiling, uplifting Margaritas. Heavenly perfumes await me from lavenders Little Lady, Hidcote, Rosea and Grosso, mingled with Gertrude Jekyll roses and summer jasmine; all wafting around and enticing me to stroll among my garden’s camaraderie. From dawn till dusk, my garden wildlife visitors nod their heads and sounds in harmony. - Ends -
So now you understand WHY my Beeston garden has helped me through the years and why I have written my small illustrated book series “The Adventures of Tag and Miss Zippy” (to be published) because these books are also tourism aids about each region in England and Wales Tag and I explored together 2006-2017.
...and WHY every garden tells a story and, to me, WHY every plant in my garden tells a story. Mum and Dad - Sonia and Mietek Zipser - and TAG, this story and my ‘Letter from Beeston’ is dedicated to YOU. If you wish to read my further stories about my parents, Tag, my garden, my art, and my previous Letters from Beeston (and listen to), please go to this website BLOG. Additionally, if you wish to watch and listen to Art-Culture-Tourism’s Facebook LIVE video streaming recordings and hear our podcasts, please go on https://www.facebook.com/pg/artculturetourism/videos/?ref=page_internal of https://www.facebook.com/artculturetourism/ and PODCASTS. My Art-Culture-Tourism GARDEN ART section is https://www.artculturetourism.co.uk/garden-art.html Thank you for reading and listening. Marysia Zipser marysia@artculturetourism.co.uk Find me on Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn
At 16.30-17.00 hrs GMT https://www.facebook.com/artculturetourism/
ACT welcomes you this Tuesday 26th for our What’sOnDigital #Ep.3 LIVE Facebook streaming and podcast at 16.30-17.00 hrs GMT for our next episode with our team, Inna Schutts, Dawn Lindson and Marcus Gilmore, with Caron Lyon of PCM creative producing.
To those in Beeston-Nottingham, Roberto needs little introduction as he has been our Guest Artist annual visitor for the past five years. Our Ghost Bus website blogs illuminate his story and Visual Adventures in the Land of Robin Hood, and his last visit in 2019. https://www.artculturetourism.co.uk/blog/category/ghost-bus-project “Can you believe that this Art is from an old bus?” his 2015 film trailer asks. No, we couldn’t believe it Roberto, until you showed us! Go onto his blog site to find out more about him. https://robertoalborghetti.wordpress.com/ I will be interviewing Roberto, live from Bergamo, not only about The Ghost Bus, but also about his online Vorticism: Lockdown exhibition and his active Italian educational and editorial program with schools.
We also welcome singer-songwriter Jeanie Barton https://jeaniebarton.com/ who began her collaborative musical arts journey with Roberto, when introduced to him, at the Ghost Bus Show on 27th March 2015 at its film premiere at Barton’s garage. Her recent experiences have been active composing and performing music with her Lockdown Lifts on YouTube and social networks. You can also experience Roberto’s RadioVision production with my voice recording of “Letter from Beeston” broadcast on BBC Radio Nottingham last week. https://robertoalborghetti.wordpress.com/2020/05/21/the-ghost-bus-bbc-radio-tells-the-saga-in-letter-from-beeston/
All in all, it will be a very informative and entertaining show. Here are the links. Please go onto https://www.facebook.com/artculturetourism/ , Like the page, if you haven’t already, and scroll down Upcoming Events and click on May 26. We hope to see you there. If you are unable to, you can easily watch this afterwards at your leisure, or listen to the podcast after its release later this week. Andiamo! Let’s Go! Marysia Zipser https://www.artculturetourism.co.uk/ Find me on Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn
Updated: Jul 8, 2021
Letter from Beeston
Here is my recording of my first Letter from Beeston which was submitted to BBC Local Radio Upload community project and broadcast on 4th May BBC Radio Nottingham on Arun Verma’s evening show. For those who wish to read my script it's published below the audio Download File.
letter_from_beeston_by_marysia_zipser.wavDownload File
I’ve been living and working in Beeston for the past eight years. Being born and educated in West Bridgford, I moved, in my early 20s, to London, then Buckinghamshire and Berkshire, including a few European stints, and returned, after 23 years, to the bosom of my family with my two young sons in 1997. Beeston is a special place for me and where I’ll stay. It has a strong identity and sense of place with a community like no other place I’ve lived. From the start, I gravitated towards meeting local artists, writers, poets, musicians and photographers and couldn’t believe such wealth of creativity existed. The town, and Rylands area by the river and canal, are full of heritage buildings denoting its vibrant industrial past and entrepreneurial spirit. In my first few weeks of settlement in 2012, I ventured with Tag my dog, to Beeston canalside and riverside and imagined its heyday in Edwardian times with passing leisure boats and people relaxing on the grassy banks, like a scene from an Impressionist painting by George Seurat or Claude Monet. We then found ourselves in front of the Boathouse Cafe by the marina. I tied up Tag outside and entered, looking, to my amazement, at the facing wall full of old photographs from Plessey and Boots’ days mounted like a mini-museum. I peered closely at the characters and sitting groups and they proudly looked back at me. Then I stood back in disbelief and called out to the manager, “Is that really Mahatma Gandhi in this photograph?! It shows him visiting a Beeston house in October 1931.” “Yes”, he said, “He visited his nephew Joshi who was doing student experience at Ericssons.” “Do the people of Beeston know this?” I questioned him. “Well, just a few I should imagine,” he replied back. So that propelled me into my mission to find out more about the history of Beeston. You can imagine my delight when a few months later I found out that Beeston & Chilwell together had 24 Blue Plaques erected on buildings and planned to erect. And in 1918 a Blue Plaque was rightfully erected on the house in Linden Grove, Beeston Rylands, where Gandhi stepped into to visit Joshi for welcome tea and catch up chat. My passion for art, heritage and heritage tourism has been flourishing ever since, so you can imagine the true stories I have discovered...and there’s still so much more to uncover.
For the update on this story please read my blog of 17 October 2018. Here is the link https://www.artculturetourism.co.uk/blog/another-blue-plaque-for-beeston-mahatma-gandhi Talking about letters and stories...have a read about this Nottstopping Festival happening this weekend... and its "Write Up My Street" project which is for your own community to get involved in.
Nottstopping Festival multi-arts online event 23-24 May :
A Bank Holiday Extravaganza Celebrating and Connecting Nottinghamshire whilst fundraising to provide gifts, treats and experiences for Frontline Workers. https://nottstoppingfestival.com/ This sounds really exciting with some wonderful local Notts projects all for a good cause to treat our Frontline Workers. I am promoting their Community Connect Project - ‘Write Up My Street’ stories, in partnership with the University of Nottingham. Connect with people on your street and unleash your imagination to create a child friendly story. Write a paragraph (about anything) and then pass it onto your neighbour…and so on until…THE END. Find out what to do on this link below. https://nottstoppingfestival.com/community-project/write-up-my-street/
Here's the latest line-up news! https://www.creativequarter.com/articles/life/stellar-line-up-announced-for-nottstopping-festival Many thanks for listening and reading this blog. Look forward to receiving any likes and comments below. Marysia Zipser marysia@artculturetourism.co.uk Find me on Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn