Part 1 of 2

As some of you may know alongside NTW productions NTW runs an assembly. Last night (22nd April 2010) Swansea hosted there assembly and I would like to thank everybody who attended and made the night so enjoyable. This Blog is about the 4 crazy days leading up to the assembly.

I got into Monkey Cafe on Monday afternoon not sure what to expect but excited about the next few days. What happened that day was that I met a very cool bunch of people who were going to make the next few days very enjoyable.

After discussing some ideas we set to work. I was talking with Gary who had came to this project along with his daughter Alison. Gary used to work on the docks in Swansea and clearly loved his time there. He moved up through the ranks until he was made redundant from his position as signal man. Talking with Gary is something that I hope everyone gets the opportunity do, he is a natural story teller with a real passion for his subjects. I could of spent the remainder of the project chatting with Gary but there was lots still to do. I will however let you in on one of his pearls of wisdom that you to may be able to take advantage of, the Eli Jenkins in Swansea has the cheapest pints not Potters as I previously thought.

I now have a small confession to make the 4 crazy days leading up to the assembly also contained 1 mad morning the week before. On this morning I met Brenden and Steve at a U3A jive class. I would really encourage anybody who is looking for a way to meet new people to attend jive classes as you are thrown into the deep end and can bond over the experience. Jiving with U3A ladies is something I will remember for a long time not only for the new dance moves I now know but also the utter enjoyment of spinning and throwing women twice and in some cases three times my age around a dance floor. But I digress back to the 4 crazy days.

Steve, who as I mentioned before I met at the jive class the week before the project began, is a very talented musician advanced in years willing to share his knowledge he has accumulated over the years. Any crooners or singers around the Swansea area should look Steve out as he loves hearing people play with his songs, he told me numerous times that he likes to make most of his songs public domain just one way that Steve tries to share what he can. For me however the greatest piece of advice I received was on pulling technique, I'm still trying to perfect it at the moment but it's proving no worse than my previous technique. Steve made each day enjoyable with his classical guitar music and was a pleasure to work with.

to be continued