A 30 Foot Vision

A 30 Foot Vision

As I stood among the crowds in the middle of Oakfield Road, I was aware of a sudden rush of excitement.  She was walking down the far end of the road, I could just about see her.

I’d waited a long time to see her; ever since I first saw her images a long time ago on YouTube.  She was fascinating and I’d walked a long way that day to see her.

As she drew nearer, cameras were pulled out of bags and hundreds of mobile phones were trust into the air; she was here; she was about to walk past us.

There was a lot for our eyes to drink in.  Her green dress, her long dark hair; braided in plaits at the sides, her buttoned up shoes and impossibly long eyelashes.  She was 30 foot tall, a beautiful young girl in the shape of a giant.

She walked past majestically – considering her height she was elegant and absolutely captivating.  As she looked from right to left and back again she seemed real, with a level of calmness about her as though she realised that we were all here to see her and as though she accepted our fascination.

As she walked past, we couldn’t just leave her; so we walked as best we could along-side her as far as the park where she sat down, yawned and went to sleep.

There was then a mad sprint down to Albert Dock where her uncle, a 90 foot giant was emerging out of the dock and walking along the Strand and then into Liverpool ‘s commercial district.  Another amazing sight when he walked past us towards a huge Royal Mail container...

Liverpool’s Titanic Girl and her Uncle captivated the City for a weekend.  The headline in the Liverpool Echo was “Goodbye, we won’t forget you”.  How true.  I never will.

Feedback from the Farmyard

Feedback from the Farmyard  

The current Dowager Duchess of Devonshire has always kept chickens.  If you have ever been to Chatsworth, they are roaming freely in the grounds in a very ‘free range’ kind of way.

Deborah Devonshire (the last of the Mitford’s), along with her husband the then Duke of Devonshire, transformed Chatsworth into the magnificent place it is today.

One of her many aspiring qualities is the wonderful way in which she is able to engage people.  One of the working farms on the Chatsworth estate opened to the public and school trips were encouraged.  The Duchess wanted children to be able to see farm animals face to face, so to speak, and to be able to understand the working of a farm and where products came from.

In order for her to gain feedback from the children and teachers without them actually realising it was her – she donned simple clothes and a headscarf and pretended to be a farm worker.  On one of the cow milking sessions, a young school boy from Birmingham pointed at the cow and was reported to have said something along the lines of “Is that where milk comes from?  That’s absolutely disgusting”.  The Duchess merely smiled.  She had achieved the feedback she was looking for.  The child was enlightened and educated in a process that previously he knew nothing about.