limehurst school

During late March and early April, the Partition commemoration events began to take place at Limehurst School. A group of students who had shown an interest in the project were brought together to begin working on this project. Dr. Kerry Featherstone ran a series of creative writing workshops which produced an amazing aray of poems and prose. These pieces of work were then refined and used by theatre director Dominic Rai as the basis and inspiration for a series of dramatic performances that the students were working on. The group of 24 students worked incredibly hard, with the help of their teachers, Nicky Gayle and Nick Grainger to turn the pieces into a professional performance. The culmination of the project is a performance at Loughborough Library on thursday 26th April at 7pm when they will perform in front of an audience. Also on the evening Dominic will run a short film about the project and we also have two guests of homour who lived through Partition and are willing to tell their heart rending story. It promises to be both a moving and emotional evening!

Collection of Poems

photo gallery

Loughborough Library Presentation

What can I say? We spent all day rehearsing with the students to perfect the performance.... trust me it was far from perfect! When the students began to arrive at the Library for a final rehearsal an hour before the performance I was rapidly losing hope of ever whipping them into shape. They were excited, rowdy and not listening to a word we said, one group couldn't stop giggling. With only 5 minutes to go, our guests of honour had still not arrived, this really was going to be a disaster. The audience of around 60 people were quietly chattering amongst themselves, finally our guests Mr and Mrs Anand arrived 20 minutes late, this lovely gentle elderly couple had got horribly lost. Still the show must go on! The evening began with a short introduction by myself, and then Dr Featherstone introduced his poets. I couldn't believe this.... our little gaggle of ugly ducklings had all of a sudden turned into beautiful swans! Their poetry was eloquent, well read with feeling and strength, portraying both the tragedy and the message of Partition. Their earlier humour and rowdiness belied their deep understanding of a moving and difficult portrayal.
Next, Mr and Mrs Anand spoke, they recounted their stories with a deep acceptance of human tragedy, yet with a message of hope. Both the children and audience listened with fascination and interest to a story as vivid today as it must have been 60 years ago. Pure emotion stunned the audience into silence at the end of our guests speech for what felt like ages. And then our students did us proud with a moving and serious dramatic presentation of the work they had developed. They were just amazing, my little heart was bursting with pride and my eyes filled with tears as they were applauded again and again. They excelled themselves beyond question.... every single one.