18/03/2026
SAME OLD STORY
I used to lead a singing group for people with Alzheimer's disease - organised by the charity Dignity in Dementia. A man who came would tell the same story each week:
"During the war I was stationed in the Scottish Highlands on the west coast. We were testing new rockets for the army. I was just an ordinary squaddie but at the firing of these rockets were also generals and bigwigs, the high and the mighty. They would watch with great pride as the rockets shot out over the sea - and then one would shout, "Duck everybody," as the rockets lost their way and came screaming back towards us."
I loved this story. It said so much about that time, and about generals and squaddies, and the wilds of Scotland - I could see the heather in my mind's eye, feel the breeze blowing in from the Atlantic, see the staff car parked on the cliff top. I never had any problem that I had heard it dozens of times before - although I could see his carers looking on anxiously: "Now come on John, we've all heard that story many times before."
I'm not adverse to telling the same story a few times myself. I find they give some structure to the chaos of emotion inside me. They contain truths which I have found valuable in my life. They express something that I might be feeling - and my feelings often repeat, anger, sadness, anxiety, love - these are not one off emotions. The stories add meaning to my life.
A singer who joined our choir 10 years ago told me how it was for her hearing my stories: "When I first heard you doing this, telling the same story several times, I thought, has David got dementia? But then I saw that you didn't have any of the other symptoms, and I decided, well it must be important for him to do this, it must serve him in some way - I shall just accept it. At first it was hard for me, I didn't know how to be - should I just pretend that I had never heard the story before? But once I got used to it, I found I could just listen and appreciate the story without having to worry about how I should be in response to it."
The improvised dance teacher Gabrielle Roth once said that when people would go to see the shaman and say they were depressed, he would reply: "When did you stop singing? When did you stop dancing? When did you stop telling stories?"
Stories are part of my flow. I am sure if I had been born in these more emotionally literate times I would express my emotions in other ways, weeping, hugging, all those healthy human expressions. But in the 1950's boys didn't do that - so instead I sang, all the time. I danced when I could. I told stories.
After the 1966 Aberfan disaster, where 116 children were killed when a slag heap from the coal mine slid down the hillside and buried the village school, the whole valley experienced enormous grief - no one was spared. The women comforted each other, but the men found what comfort they could from singing. There was an explosion of male voice choirs in the area. The overwhelming emotion which threatened to destroy them was contained and expressed by the songs.
Stories do that for me too.
The great thing about folk songs is that many of them also tell a story - and no one worries if they have heard it before.
Every year at the Dungworth carols, Will Noble sings his seasonal stories - many people say, "It's not Christmas until Will Noble has sung the Mistletoe Bough." And the Christmas Goose. You could easily believe that no one had heard the song before as they listen so respectfully, but there is a tradition - Will sings the first half of the last line of each verse, and everyone joins in with the second half of that line.
Will: "And then he blew the candle out...
Us: "...and you can guess the rest."
And the chorus too. The song has humour, it says something about men and women at that time, some kind of justice is served. And everyone gets to join in.
When we listen to these old stories, we are all being respectful witnesses - no one is trying to be the anxious manager trying to silence the storyteller.
I have been musing recently about my ex-partners and girl friends. Trudi was the first after a decade for me as a celibate monk. I've noticed that many women are like property developers when they meet men:
"This one is suitable for development - just a little work and he could be something really special."
I think that's how Trudi saw me. One of the women at Black Sail heard me saying this and said: "I don't know about being suitable for development - the kind of men I've had in my life were only suitable for demolition!"
Trudi had a proper job, and helped me get one too on a daily newspaper after I had been a freelance writer for a couple of years. But she didn't stop there. She could see I was out of touch with my emotions, so sent me off for therapy. After a while, she asked me how it was going.
"Well, I know what I'm feeling now."
"Oh yes, and what's that?"
"I feel the world is full of beautiful and interesting women, all of whom I would like to get to know in every possible way."
We ended soon after that. Like all property developers, you can make the house into something liveable, but you just don't get to live in it yourself.
What I think worries a lot of people who aren't performers is that storytelling is a performance, it's not what most people think of as conversation, as a turning together. But it can be.
I remember Enrique Pardo leading an improvised environmental theatre workshop, by the sea near St Davids.
My improvised piece involved me being tangled up in an old fishing net I found on the beach. I wrapped it around me, and as the audience gathered around, I struggled to break free. Eventually I was out, and took off into the waves, swimming out to sea, eventually out of sight. The audience were a little perturbed, and then anxious, and then in panic: "Oh, my god he's killed himself."
About an hour later, I came out from behind the rocks and swam back to the beach - where I was given a right earful. But not from Enrique. He said: "I knew you weren't going to kill yourself - you love life too much." It must have been an effective piece of theatre - when I meet people who were there, they still remember it.
He noticed how I was with the others: "The trouble with many people when they learn how to perform is that they love it so much that that's all they do, all the time. They forget how to be personal in conversation."
But I'm not so sure. This thing a person has which they think is so real comes from the Greek word persona, the mask which the actors wore in their drama. Peal a layer off what a person presents, and there's another mask. And beneath that, another one. Turtles all the way down!
The way I see it, life is about connection. Some of us are very good at connecting to the deepest reaches inside us, a vertical connection. Others are very good at connecting in society, to groups, to others, a horizontal connection.
Stories show how we are all connected, the themes may be personal but they are also universal. They help us live the paradox that we are all one, and we are all different, separate.
I sometimes think that if a story hasn't helped people to connect because my listeners are angry and frustrated about having heard it hundreds of times before - maybe what that story needs is a good chorus for everyone to join in with.
But also I love it when the listeners tell their own stories - I like to think I give them permission. Sitting around with friends, that's what we do, share our stories, often helped by a wee dram or three.
And so in the choir, other stories emerge from the singers, leading one singer to say, "I just love the fellowship of this choir."
But that's another story.
David Burbidge
