Monday 19 May 2008

Countryside Live


I hear and I forget

I see and I remember
I do and I understand

This is the motto of The Countryside Foundation for Education who organise Countryside Live to show inner city kids the sort of things that go on in the country. We're going to the one up in Yorkshire at the Ledston Estate near Leeds tomorrow for the 2 day show.

There are birds of prey, pheasants, gun dogs, farmers, corn dolly makers, sheep shearers, hurdle makers, charcoal burners, tractors, horses, donkeys, cows and goats etc. etc... and a bodger !

Around 2000 children attend each day over the two days and most of them want to have a go on the lathe so they do understand what's going on and they'll be doing all the leg work !

We do two shows a year. One in Spring for the Northern industrial cities and one in the Autumn for London. It's great to see the look on the face of a child who's got a bird of prey on their arm as a lot of them have never been into the countryside before. They don't know about milking cows and think that milk comes in a plastic container from the supermarket.

1 comment:

rika said...

My parents were farm kids from midwestern American who raised me and my sisters as city kids, and we never heard the end of it when we visited our cousins on the farm . . .

This sounds like a wonderful project! You probably seem much like a magician to those kids.