Chelsea Pensioners start potting

How a group of senior ex-servicemen and women experience the calming and therapeutic facets of pottery, and through that explore human connection, creativity, and the sheer joy of crafting.
I was invited by Emily Chilvers to Royal Hospital Chelsea to find out more about the pottery sessions she runs there, to meet and chat with some of the pensioners that enjoy spending time in the pottery studio and, of course, to see what they’ve been making.
The benefits of pottery extend far beyond the act of moulding clay. For many of the residents partaking in the sessions, pottery is a form of self-expression and a source of joy, a weekly process that helps them to navigate personal challenges and discover new aspects of themselves. This episode delves into the therapeutic benefits of pottery, and how the tactile nature of working with clay provides a tangible connection, a sense of identity, and an avenue for creativity. For those who may lack physical touch, moulding clay becomes a comforting and sensory experience.
Moreover, the pottery sessions offer an opportunity for social interaction. The pensioners involved in the classes at Royal Hospital Chelsea have formed a supportive community. They share experiences, learn from each other, and celebrate each other's creations.
In this episode with Emily and some of the potting pensioners, I learn that pottery can be a medium of therapy, self-expression, and connection. 
You can also see the potters' work featured on our YouTube channel, Creativity Found Podcast.

If you found value in this episode and would like to show your appreciation, consider supporting the podcast through the Support the Show link, or by sending a boostagram , for example in the Fountain app.

CreativityFound.co.uk
Instagram: @creativityfoundpodcast
Facebook: @creativityfoundpodcast and Creativity Found group
YouTube @creativityfoundpodcast
Pinterest: @creativityfound
Twitter: @creativityfoun

Researched, edited and produced by Claire Waite Brown
Music: Day Trips by Ketsa Undercover / Ketsa Creative Commons License Free Music Archive - Ketsa - Day Trips
Artworks: Emily Portnoi emilyportnoi.co.uk
Photo: Ella Pallet

Buy arts and crafts techniques books, plus books by some of my podcast guests, from the Creativity Found bookshop 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:34

I'm sort of almost upskilling people above me, people that I really look up to, and certainly at the hospital. It's like I respect them so much and the lives that they've led and the stories that come back to me as I'm sharing my skill with them. It's a lovely dialogue that we have and that's really what I treasure the most.

Speaker 2: 0:53

Because I'd never done pottery before. I just found it helped me in the headspace I was in and I got into it and then I look forward to going to it. Things got better for me.

Speaker 3: 1:10

Life's not quite right, but it started to be fun. I'm almost started here and I felt so relieved that I could be the person. I am really not the person I had to show.

Speaker 1: 1:30

The potters are true ambassadors that you are never too old to try something new, to be daring and bold, have fun and stay that way.

Speaker 4: 1:39

For this episode of the Creativity Found podcast. I'm speaking with Emily, ray, john, tony and Bert, and also hearing from Jan and Alan. That's a few more guests than usual, I know, but that is because Emily Chilvers invited me to her pottery session and tenure anniversary party at Royal Hospital Chelsea, the world-famous retirement home for ex-servicemen and women in London. I was so excited when Emily got in touch to tell me about her experiences of sharing her ceramic skills and passion with the residents at Chelsea and to get the chance to speak with some of her regulars, many of whom did not start potting until they moved to the hospital.

Speaker 4: 2:22

In this episode you will hear me chat with Emily about how she was taken on in a trial capacity to teach for six weeks and how, ten years later, she's still there and loving it. You will also hear from a few of the pensioners about why they love the sessions and the benefits they have gleaned from taking part in this creative practice. Some of the footage was recorded at the anniversary party and during a Tuesday session in the studio, where activities don't stop for a podcast recording, so expect to hear the atmosphere of background noise, including a hairdryer and the clatter of tea and cake. Hi Emily, how are you Very good, thank you. Thank you for having me on, you're very welcome. You have been teaching pottery to residents of Royal Hospital Chelsea for just over 10 years, but start by telling me when and where your pottery journey began.

Speaker 1: 3:18

Probably going back to my earliest contact with clay would have been at high school. I'd always had a creative sort of growing up. I had a very creative grandfather who was kind of quite key in how I grew up and what I enjoyed doing. But clay was probably not something that I had used until I got to high school and I had a teacher, my art teacher, who was a potter, who we'd never actually used it kind of as part of our curriculum on it. It'd never really come up during classes. And then during my GCSE coursework, somehow she just decided that clay was the thing for me and that was the point where I've probably one of the only ones in the class that started using it. And she uncovered this room that was in the middle of the two classrooms at our school where kiln was, and suddenly this whole world was open up to me and that's what I developed into my GCSE work and beyond and, yeah, that was the starting point. I owe it all to her, yeah, and that was kind of by chance.

Speaker 1: 4:19

Yeah, it kind of was by chance. I mean, probably whatever I was working on, somehow she thought maybe this could be incorporated into some clay work. Quite an awakening for me, just the whole, the alchemy of building and constructing with this material, this soft material that turned into something hard and concrete when it went in the kiln, and exploring all the colours and the glazes and it was, yeah, it was quite an exciting time. So I do. I've seen her since a few years back and I remember saying I owe it all to you Because without that starting point, you know you just who knows what would have happened.

Speaker 4: 4:51

Yeah, so what were you able to do with that after high school then?

Speaker 1: 4:56

The thing for me at high school was it was and I suppose even now you know I'm kind of I'm quite wayward in all the things I like to explore and have so many different materials that I like to experiment with, it became quite a key element for me.

Speaker 1: 5:08

But there were other things going along in my studies. So woodwork was another big area that I was really interested in and that's what I took into my university degree, which was a similar kind of exploration. It was all workshop based. It was down at Brighton and it was all in the workshops practical study but based in all those different materials. So I wasn't necessarily honing in on one. Eventually I had to then select two materials which kind of were my specialism in the end, and that was clay and wood. But yeah, it allowed me to find something that gave me that freedom to just keep playing around and experimenting with things, and I definitely think that's probably still what I do today and what I enjoy sharing with others. That's how I got into it and that's how I like to share it now.

Speaker 4: 5:51

Yeah, it's very much doing, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 5:54

Totally doing Getting into it and doing so.

Speaker 4: 5:57

then, after uni, what were you able to do after you've got your degree and you've touched on it? Had you always wanted to teach your craft?

Speaker 1: 6:06

Yeah, I don't think that was in my mind because, certainly in the degree that I did. You know, the vision for all of us was the idea that you're going to go off and set up your own studio and that was maybe an aim in my mind. I don't think necessarily that I was driven by that necessarily, because I went straight into working for other people, or certainly assisting other people, just as a way of getting a feel for the industry and what people were doing, and it wasn't all clay based. That was kind of that had been my focus towards the end of my degree. But I was working for a woodturner, a leather maker. I just tried different people going into their workshops and seeing how it all worked. You know, there was the whole thing when you left your degree about how you're not going to have all this equipment and you're not going to have the facilities that you have when you're there in these incredible workshops and with everything at your disposal. So I don't really know what I was thinking at that point. I think I just enjoyed the going into and finding out about, you know, the industry itself. So that gave me, yeah, that kind of passion for working with others and the assisting role. Actually. I suppose maybe in a way that's kind of what I kind of see myself as now and maybe that's perhaps what developed into the teaching. I loved the helping support, somebody develop their work and meeting all the interesting people that were around the medium that we were working in, whether that was going to other factories or whatever I was doing at that point. I just enjoyed the people aspect of it.

Speaker 1: 7:37

And then I started an apprenticeship with a potter. That was two days a week. At that point I was working in a pub the rest of the time like trying to balance the reality of where am I going to make any money, and really enjoyed that. He's quite a well-known potter. His name's Julian Stare. He had a lovely workshop in Dullitch and it was sort of a dual-based role where I was assisting him on work that he was developing for his solo show at that point and then getting the chance to develop my skills at the same time. So he was a thrower, so learning those skills and, as I say, working in the pub at the same time and the two kind of weren't really working together.

Speaker 1: 8:18

And then one evening I came home from my pub work and really early in the morning I just found another part-time role as a pottery tutor in a care home, and this was a care home in Wandsworth called Nightingale. It's a Jewish home, not as big as Chelsea but fairly big in terms of about 180 residents. This kind of unexpected role that didn't really think would ever have been possible. I mean, wouldn't have even considered that kind of role but thought actually this is yeah, kind of maybe something that I could do alongside the work I was doing for Julian. And that kind of started a whole new interest in drawing out what I was taking from working with Julian and the other people that I've been apprenticing for and then seeing how it actually could be used in this new role. And actually that's what I was more driven about using, making and using my skills to help other people.

Speaker 3: 9:18

My name is Ray.

Speaker 4: 9:20

And how long have you been coming to pottery?

Speaker 5: 9:24

Must be for seven years, now eight years.

Speaker 4: 9:26

Yeah.

Speaker 5: 9:27

Long time, isn't it?

Speaker 4: 9:29

That's a good time, do you remember? Why, you chose to come to this particular.

Speaker 5: 9:33

I wanted to make something as a memory for my kids and my wife, and her name was Iris. So I came down and I saw Emily and she said well, start making the dish. I said, no, I don't want to make a dish. So I made an Iris flower and I made eight of them and I gave them as Christmas presents. I used to do woodturning and all sorts of other things, but I've never done pottery Not that I'm any good at it, because I only make seconds.

Speaker 3: 9:59

What did you make?

Speaker 5: 10:01

I did it, but you don't make things perfect.

Speaker 4: 10:03

Oh, I see you make seconds.

Speaker 5: 10:06

If you've got something perfect on the table, it's on the table and people are like oh, that's it. But if there's something with something wrong with it, people say, oh, that's not quite right. But they don't know whether it was deliberate or mistake. Yeah, so I only make seconds. That's my excuse.

Speaker 4: 10:22

But you're right, and also in many cases don't challenge. Oh, sorry, it's the process as much as it is the finished article.

Speaker 5: 10:33

I just like making things stupid, because nobody can ever say that isn't perfect, because it's only perfect, like everything is the same of the production line, so that's perfect in its way, because that's how I wanted it to be Imperfect Right.

Speaker 4: 10:50

And what about you, John? Why did you start coming?

Speaker 2: 10:53

I've been very poorly suggested to me that I might help for me to come and have a go at doing some potting. So I told him to buzz off a number of times For being the persistent past the years. I said, oh okay, there we go. And you know, it was such a in a way, a friendly group and it was seen. So, yeah, it seemed really nice and so I started to go because I'd never done pottery before. I just found it helped me in the headspace I was in and I got into it and then I look forward to going to it. Things got better for me so I kept Going and that was about what six years ago now, right Seven years ago.

Speaker 4: 11:43

So you still get all those kind of benefits from continuing.

Speaker 2: 11:50

Yes, because it's a very much more compact group, because it's have to be split because of the size of room. Right, it's have to be split, yeah, but it's still got that you know bit of banter, and it's nice to see what other people make, even though they make a load of rubbish. You know, I personally think that some of the stuff which is made considering that these people, like myself, have never been involved in the process, some of the stuff they make, is quite surprisingly good in my opinion. I personally find it's very helpful and continues to be helpful to me, and I think it's beneficial to all of us. We have a lot, and Emily is such a lovely girl and other people associated with it are very considerate of Australia, so I enjoy it. I can't see myself giving it up.

Speaker 4: 12:52

I think it's very forward thinking of the care home to put creative workshops on just lovely. It's a kind of thing that maybe wouldn't be considered the most important thing in that environment, absolutely. But that's brilliant that they were advertising for that. So tell me we have an international audience. So, for those who aren't aware of it, can you tell me more about the Royal Hospital and a little about, maybe, some of the students that come to your sessions?

Speaker 1: 13:21

The Royal Hospital is quite an iconic building in itself but also for what it when it represents. It's a home, retirement home and also care home for ex-servicemen and women of our British army so veterans going back to World War Two that we have residing there and there's about 300 residents that live on site. So I started developing other smaller workshops in care homes and hospitals and Nightingale and Chelsea kind of worked closely at that time, sharing activities and often doing things together. So the activity lady at Chelsea had seen what I did at Nightingale and asked if I could come and try something out which was only supposed to be for six weeks. Program was sort of developing at that time. There was lots of sort of social engagement, lots of musical activities that would happen in a concert, some things like that.

Speaker 1: 14:11

But perhaps not at that time as much as Nightingale were offering a sort of creative art based vision for pensioners. And actually I must say about Nightingale I mean it wasn't the first time that they'd had pottery there. It'd been running at Nightingale for about 25 years, so it wasn't a new thing. It was just I was taking over from the potter that had been there before. But it is, I mean, unheard of that, a potter would be literally based within a care home. So Chelsea was a chance for me to almost start that myself and that's why, in a way, it's got such a special place in my heart, because it really was me instigating and creating something and from what I thought yeah was going to, maybe, even though I maybe knew the potential of what it could become, knowing that the start it was only supposed to be six weeks, you know it was like, ok, well, let's just make a go of it. And also going into a home where the majority are men. So we only have maybe now, I think, 15 to 20 women that had just started being accepted at the point when I started working there. But yeah, to go into a completely different audience, because often when I'm visiting care homes or hospitals it's normally women that I'm interacting with, which is kind of a common thing, I suppose, with with craft based activities.

Speaker 1: 15:23

But perhaps there was something more physical about you know, maybe a bit more masculine about working with clay that appealed to the pensioners and I started with five at that point for the six week course and it was quite a mixed sort of group of guys that were coming for different reasons. Some were interested in pottery previously or done a little bit before. Others kind of liked the idea of trying something different. There was a chap in particular, timmy Jones, and he'd never done it before but he was quite interested.

Speaker 1: 15:54

I took some objects into hand or when I first went to meet them all, and he was quite interested and showed an interest in me talking about the Victoria and Almond Museum and places that we could perhaps explore and things like that, and his ears pricked up and Teresa, who was the activity lady at the time, had said to me like wow, he doesn't often respond to many things, so this is obviously quite a.

Speaker 1: 16:14

This is exciting because if we can get him to do something it'd be great. And he was with me for about eight years. He passed away during COVID, not because of COVID, but he was a wonderful man and had the steadiest hands I've ever known. He became known for these sort of spotty patterned clocks that he would make that were his sort of signature thing, and he was 94, 95, I think, when he passed away, but his hands were so steady. He said that he was really neat in doing these patterns and you know they're all precise, based on clock and configuration of the number and everything, and it was just so lovely to watch him work.

Speaker 6: 16:55

Now, as you look around the room and you look at the screen, you'll see various folk that are no longer with us. We had one guy, dougie, who had been captured by the Japanese. He worked on the railways. He used to specialise in making poppies. He sent one to the Queen and she sent a personal letter back to Dougie. That was a beautiful pot and he was making poppies before poppies became popular. You try saying that At the Tower of London Dougie was making poppies way before them.

Speaker 6: 17:25

Yeah, so we've had some wonderful, wonderful potters. We've had Jimmy. Okay, the clocks that you see, there are some clocks around the place, they are genuine jimmies. Okay, genuine jimmies. Jimmy fought through the Second World War. He used to do everything with dots and every now and again he would say excuse me, I'm going to swear. Oh, butter, wipe the dot and redo it. You know that was Jimmy, a gentleman. So we've had lots and lots of wonderful people, very fond memories of those people and, like the potters that we have here today, emily helps us develop our own particular direction. I mean, ron, sitting there, made a copy of the cenotaph. It's magnificent, absolutely brilliant. Ron, emily comes alongside. We don't work alone. Emily comes alongside and she gets the very, very best outfits. Emily came for a trial. It's been the most successful trial hobby interest that's ever been introduced into Chelsea. Okay, and it's going on in the US.

Speaker 1: 18:35

APPLAUSE. When I joined the Royal Hospital ten years ago, my grandmother just passed away. His name was Roy. We were very close. He was an Army man and also the person I owned my creativity to. He was so proud to hear I was going to be working here, so it was sad that he never got the senior start. On the day I started here I was setting up the tables. Theresa said she was going to Plexipengen. I think it'd been desperate to come to Pottery. He didn't attend any activities so it was great he was keen to join. When she brought him in she said Emily, this is Roy, and it completely took you back. It took it as a short time that my grandmother brought him there with me. Ever since, I guess a part of being here has felt a little bit like being his lots. But honour every grandparents and I thank him for that LAUGHTER Because that's a very special thing and that's what I love about the fruit and the most. You are also special to me.

Speaker 4: 20:23

When I came to the event, obviously I saw all the fabulous work but hearing the pensioners talk at the presentation bit of the event after you your lovely speech that you were very nervous about- it was such an overwhelming day.

Speaker 1: 20:45

those things don't happen very often for me anyway, as you can probably guess, and you can tell why. But I think, especially when you're a freelancer, you really have only got yourself to encourage. Even though there's a community out there, the hospital is, with its army background, it's got a certain reputation and status and to have that creative element in that kind of environment it's hard to feel like it's of value. Sometimes it's absolutely well respected there and the way that it's grown is so appreciated by everybody. But yeah, I suppose you still feel like you're the one creative person that's constantly advocating for it. And to get that reception Also, just for me, to bring together all those people that have been part of the journey over those 10 years, it was just very overwhelming and just so lovely.

Speaker 1: 21:38

I know all those experiences that they've had that they tell me and share with me during classes about why it benefits them and why they're so happy to be there and just to hear it out loud and for everybody else to hear it. It's just so lovely because they've all had very different ways into working with Clay and that's the lovely thing about it. This one ball of clay can just be so much for so many different people.

Speaker 4: 22:05

And, yeah, they had wonderful things to say about their benefits and about you in particular, but about coming to the classes and how that benefits them physically as well as mentally and well-being wise.

Speaker 7: 22:19

I'm not a very patient person, but we have the people that say well of myself in our pottery group and you learn from people like Emily and David to make time for people with fewer abilities in yourself, to take the time to listen to these people, talk to these people and make them your friends, and that's so important in life and a lot of us don't do that. One of the things my group miss is touch, and I think in our age group, when we probably lost our spouses and our loved ones, we go into a care scenario and nobody touches you. You're not allowed to touch people today. You're not allowed to go, are you alright? And I do everything like this? That's not the case in the pottery group. We're all bound in a room and you just have to get on and go and touch everybody and it's just great fun.

Speaker 7: 23:09

So, what I found from clay is I recently on the potter's wheel is that having a piece of clay on a potter's wheel and running your hands around that clay while it's making a pot or something, it's one of the most sensual things and somehow you feel being touched, you feel like you're touching something and it gives you a lot. So that's an inanimate piece of clay. It somehow gives you something and it gives me such joy. I tell you it really does. I love this group. It has given me identity. I'm very proud to be a member in this, your tenth year of Emily.

Speaker 1: 23:54

I love that person.

Speaker 1: 23:55

Interaction and that is really what drives what I do and perhaps sometimes becomes the forefront of what I do over the medium in which what we're using, the clay that we're using, that's the conversation starter, but it's the conversation that develops out of it for each person that I love the most and that's what is empowering for me and for whoever I'm working with. That it can give somebody that at that age because I'm sort of almost upskilling people above me, people that I really look up to, and certainly at the hospital it's like I respect them so much and the lives that they've led and the stories that come back to me as I'm sharing my skill with them. It's a lovely dialogue that we have and that's really what I treasure the most and what I try to offer wherever I'm delivering something. So if it's in a hospital, for example, you're not going to get the same sort of impact working with clay immediately, because you might only be seeing that patient for 20 minutes, but it's the way you can connect with somebody and have a conversation.

Speaker 3: 24:58

The reason I came down. When I arrived, I wasn't in the best position, wasn't in the best situation talked about. Don't be old man. Well, I'm certainly showing these things. I've never done this before. I'm sleeping all day. I must well go down and do it, because if I couldn't do it, I'd sleep. I'm more asleep than I say I am, so this is therapeutic to me. And the other thing is I started having life. It's not quite right, but it started to be fun.

Speaker 3: 25:36

And that started here, yeah, and I felt so relieved that I could be the person I am. Really. I'm not the person I had to show because it would work, and the person I had shown had to be very caring, very helpful, didn't mind anything, spend any number of hours doing it. And this was doing what I was doing occupational health nursing. But before that I was in the army. And when you come out to that environment and you find home, you look around and the home hasn't been there for a lot of years and then suddenly you get the catastrophe everybody leaves, passes on, it's such a nothing. And then you arrive here.

Speaker 3: 26:34

I had a year and a half where I just could not settle. Yeah, I wanted to walk away, and one of the things that kept me here was the fact that I could be with people who knew what it was, didn't care, yeah, and the pottery was an outlet that I felt very, very comfortable with. I don't remember me seeing these the other day, but you knew me straight away and I sort of knew the place I was in. It wasn't a great place, so I kept away. Oh, I might miss my pottery, please get out of my way. And nobody was stopping me except me, yeah. So the pottery itself is therapeutic in so much you sit and you listen to the guys around you. When anything happens or anything, everybody is there. They'll keep away from you if you want to ask them, because they know they feel it.

Speaker 3: 27:36

It's not like having a full time course where somebody's going to teach you something. It's a learning space and that's the way Emily does it. It's just sort of idea. Pottery begins and it begins with you going out and rolling about a piece of clay. You can't really clue what you're going to do, yeah, but you roll it out, you get in there and you just start. The difference is the difference is. It's the person who teaches you to respond to the materials.

Speaker 4: 28:10

To bring out what wants to come out.

Speaker 3: 28:14

Yeah, and perhaps I don't know, but I honestly believe that any materials that you handle or move with or sort of lean against, they've got life of their own. And I know it sounds crazy, but they get out as crazy as they come. But that's what happens in that room it holds you, it keeps you safe. Yeah, All the things that you want. My biggest thing at the moment is I simply lost my life Two weeks before Covid was and I just what do I do?

Speaker 4: 29:03

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 29:03

It's been changing my life and I've been able to work out with the materials and enjoy them. Enjoy them no end. The thing about pottery is it doesn't matter and the mistake doesn't matter. It's not like you're working in wood, as precision has got to be. The precision is there when you finish. It hasn't got to be there, but it's your interpretation. I recommend you recommend it yeah.

Speaker 1: 29:40

There's something really nice about when somebody's got something in their hand to sort of play with in way, even just like the material itself that's so tactile, and to be able to feel that, to be able to open up, is it's a lovely experience to just use it in that format as much as I can do the building somebody's skill level up within the clay world.

Speaker 4: 30:01

Yeah, there's more to it than than that. You talked about hospitals there, so what is these other things that you do?

Speaker 1: 30:08

Building off of Lighting Go. Really, when I first started there, it was just about how can I offer this to other settings? I just started delivering smaller sessions to either care homes that didn't have the budget, so I would do maybe shorter, one-off or, you know, six-week sessions. And then I worked for a charity up at Chelsea Westminster Hospital called CW Plus. They're an arts charity based within the hospital and they work across that hospital in West Middlesex as well and I just deliver as part of the arts program, so it's called Arts for All, so they have musicians, dancers, other art makers that go in and work with the patients on the wards and just do smaller activity based by their bedside. Oh, that's fabulous. So I'm here there in everywhere.

Speaker 4: 30:51

Yeah Well, Emily, thanks so much for contacting me to tell me about Youth Fabulous Initiative and giving me the opportunity to sit in on a session and chat with some of the pensioners. I've had a really, really lovely time.

Speaker 1: 31:06

Thank you so much. Thanks for having us.

Speaker 4: 31:11

As I said goodbye to the pottery room, I was treated to a fabulous tour of the hospital and a super lunch with resident Bert, but before that he told me about his experience of creating with wood and clay.

Speaker 8: 31:23

I came to the hospital two years ago, two years, three months ago, having lived on a narrowboat for six and a half years, which was great.

Speaker 8: 31:31

So I've all round the canals in England which is fantastic and in the winter periods when you can't move on the canals, I moved up on a special mariner in Nottingham. Before I bought my boat I used to have my own little cellar with a layer of a cellar. I used to turn wood. So anything from bowls to almonds vars, as you name it. I did it. So when I bought my boat in the winter I found a place called Men in Sheds. It was created in Australia and what they did was that he said any man that wants to come and have a coffee and get a break from home can come and have a coffee and a cake. And the wife said get out. I went shopping so I sent them off and they went for cake and coffee and cellar and so on and so forth. And then we started building things. So they started building things for charity.

Speaker 2: 32:19

Yeah.

Speaker 8: 32:20

So they make rock and arches, like we did. They made bird boxes, head drum boxes. Well, like everything, I was in America or Australia, eventually came over here, so came here and I started to go to a workshop, a Men in Sheds shop, massive, big unit. I was there for four years I mean six years, in the winter months, and the chap taught me different things on woodworking wise as well as me turning. Yeah, and we made everything. We made rock and arches for charity, we made bird boxes, etc. Even though we would make a coffin for a husband. She came in one day, brenda, because we had women in Sheds on a Tuesday and the women came in I've lost her husbands, loads of tools, didn't know what we were for. So can you help us? Yeah, we showed them what the different screw heads were, how we used drill, etc. Brenda came in one day and she said I want you to help me build a box. What kind of box? It's a coffin. Well, she says yes, my husband has agreed. He knows about this.

Speaker 8: 33:19

I have good, he said we want to make it into a TARDIS, because he wants to be buried in a TARDIS, but in the interim, before he dies, we're going to put it in the garden so the kids can play with it. We built a TARDIS.

Speaker 4: 33:32

Yeah.

Speaker 8: 33:33

And we had all sorts of dementia patients. He used to come along and sit and watch a lot of coffee and other chat.

Speaker 6: 33:38

And.

Speaker 8: 33:38

I was just one guy who used to stand there with a piece of wood, six inch nails, a little toffee, and then try and knock them in the wood. But he was happy. Yeah, and that's all it's about. When I came here I had the idea in my mind that could carry on, and I can understand. You know health and safety wise in the area is paramount to protect pensioners, and I know all the years are faster than dangerous and if you don't know what you're doing you can cut yourself into six inch. So I appreciate it. But they're giving these little spaces out now and we just knock things together as people want them yeah.

Speaker 3: 34:11

He said we want something doing.

Speaker 8: 34:14

One of my favorite things, of course, is because I couldn't get the lid I went to do pottery Yay.

Speaker 4: 34:21

And then he made these little characters. Wow, look at that.

Speaker 8: 34:24

This is a test, it's not become out. Red, yeah, black cuffs, yeah, tri-corn, and the grade for standing flourishing.

Speaker 4: 34:34

Yeah.

Speaker 8: 34:35

And heavy, so don't tip over.

Speaker 4: 34:36

Yeah, but I've developed it from having no arms and just round buttons.

Speaker 8: 34:40

Yeah, and square arms, smaller buttons and now this is the first one left feet.

Speaker 3: 34:45

Yeah, so he's gonna feet on it for the first one.

Speaker 4: 34:48

Brilliant and how do you find it working with clay from having had lots of experience now of working with wood?

Speaker 8: 34:57

With wood. If you take a sheaven off, you can't stick it back up yeah. With clay. You can do it your life. You can mash it up again and throw it back in the box. Yeah, either for next week. Yeah, take it out again, wedge it, use it again.

Speaker 2: 35:09

Yeah so.

Speaker 8: 35:09

I think this is a much friendlier, because if you do it with wood you get it wrong. Yeah, and there's not really so much sharp tools in clay, yeah. No so it's very therapeutic.

Speaker 7: 35:20

Is it?

Speaker 8: 35:22

If I do it, if I sometimes I come and make these and I take them back when I'm done, I'll pay them on a night, yeah, and some pots on the TV yeah. Keeps in mind occupied as well.

Speaker 4: 35:32

Yeah, it's good for them. As you'll have heard, in that clip, the pensioners showed me their work, which, of course, doesn't necessarily translate to audio, so make sure you visit the Creativity Found podcast channel on YouTube to see their creations. You won't be disappointed. Thanks so much for listening to Creativity Found. If your podcast app has the facility, please leave a rating and review. To help other people find us On Instagram and Facebook, follow Act Creativity Found podcast and on Pinterest, look for Act Creativity Found. And finally, don't forget to check out creativityfoundcouk, the website connecting adults who want to find a creative outlet with the artists and crafters who can help them tap into their creativity.