Not The Bored Room # 1
Peter Christie
Strategic Storyteller at Not The Bored Room! Probably the world's most experienced business storyteller, possibly also the oldest.
The Top Hat Of This Story
Like a British gent out on the high street armed with his brolly, oral stories start with his top hat and end with his tails. This story began some decades ago when I published a series of sporadic storytelling in organisations newsletters, Talking Bull, to signal the birth of my career as a strategic storyteller. The years passed and like the Phoenix they died and are now reborn in a Not The Bored Room incarnation.
There is strength in rhythm and my intention is to publish the newsletter on a fortnightly basis, including the following aspects:
- Wise Words, a quotation of relevance to strategic storytellers.
- Story Time, a short ‘flash fiction’ story, beginning with The Charlatans, a series addressing unethical business practices currently published in The Star newspaper’s Workplace supplement. Meet the Charlatan family - Dad Shady and Mom Plum, and their children Opus, Hysteria and Consortia - and be reminded of the all too familiar shenanigans in the working world.
- Storytelling Showcase, outlining upcoming events and useful resources of interest to strategic storytellers.
Wise Words
“Stories go to work on you like arrows. Stories make you live right. Stories make you replace yourself.” Apache proverb.
As Big Chief Talking Bull, the self-appointed honorary leader of the Southern Sioux, this is my all-time favorite storytelling quotation, for I have witnessed dramatic transformations – personal and organisational - arising from the telling of tales.
Story Time – The Corruption of Child Shady Charlatan
“Now boy, you’ll do something for me. Go to the office and ask the secretary, her name’s Mrs Wormswitch, to show you how to work the roneo machine. Make forty copies of tomorrow’s test and bring them straight back to me, do you hear?” Miss Iris Nealedown instructed her eight-year-old pupil Shady Charlatan, outside the standard three classroom of Poggerston Primary School in Hackney, London, in the autumn of 1947.
Shady nodded, taking the envelope.
“Now I think I can trust you with this, but mind yourself. Don’t you dare look over the test. It’s confidential. That means its secret. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“If you look you’ll have an unfair advantage over the other children. That’s cheating!” Miss Nealedown ended sharply, pointing her finger.
Shady’s mind raced with his legs keeping pace as he rushed along the long corridor, down the stairs, and across the quadrangle. His eyes darted furtively, taking in the entire surroundings. It was class time and there was nobody around and about. He slipped into the boys’ toilet. The stench was terrible. He went past the urinal into a cubicle, closed and latched the door, and sat on the rim of the filthy toilet. There was no seat.
The child opened the envelope and took out the piece of paper, but he didn’t look. He heard someone come in and a tap in the basin being turned on. A mouth slurped between heaving breaths. The tap closed. There were heavy footsteps deeper into the toilet. Shady bent down to look though the gap between the toilet door and the floor, but he could only see the back of a pair of two long-legged dark grey pants standing at the urinal. He sat upright again. An older voice started singing, lustily. Shady’s feet shot up. He was a child and forgot that with the door closed an observant person outside would expect to see shoes and crumpled pants behind the door.
“I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts,” the older voice sang out.
Shady recognised the song, which his father often sang, and the voice. It was Mr Orpington, the headmaster. Shady froze. Mr Orpington finished peeing, but continued singing.
“I’ve got a lovely pair of coconuts,” he sang again, shaking and making himself comfortable before buttoning up the fly of his trousers. He turned around and looked at the closed cubicle door. He saw no feet. His lips pursed and his head shook this way and that. He sniffed but could smell no smoke.
“Who’s in there?” he asked.
Shady kept silent. He held his breath. His little body trembled.
“I know there’s someone in there,” said the headmaster, pushing a hand against the locked door.
“Oh, I see, it must be a ghost who came in for a wee,” he continued.
Mr Orpington knelt down to take a look through the gap. Shady quickly rolled and stuffed the envelope between the buttons of his shirt, put his feet down, turned around and bent his head over the toilet bowl, pretending to wretch.
“Open up, boy.”
Shady retched again, before turning around and opening the latch. He looked at Mr Orpington whilst wiping his mouth.
“Why’re you hiding like a rat?” Mr Orpington asked, grabbing Shady’s earlobe in his hand, squeezing tight and turning the flesh.
Shady grimaced, pulling up his shoulder in shock.
“I’m sick. I really am, I’m sick,” the boy protested.
“Argh, get off with you, scallywag, I’ve got better things to do,” Mr Orpington finished, squeezing as tight and twisting as painfully hard as he could on Shady’s ear, before releasing him.
Shady scampered off, pressing his right hand hard against his ear. Outside the office he pulled out the rolled envelope and looked back in the direction of the toilets. Mr Orpington was walking in the opposite direction, out of the entrance gate, towards the shops.
Mrs Wormswitch did not have the same faith in children as did Miss Nealedown.
“I’ll do it, thank you very much,” she said, snatching the envelope.
She went to the mimeograph in the corner of the office, put the original document in place and started winding the handle. She wound a full forty rounds, her rhythm even. Then she put the sheets of paper into the envelope. Using her hand Mrs Wormswitch gingerly took a tissue out of her bra-cup and wiped the black printing powder off her fingers and palms. Then she passed the boy the envelope.
Shady sped off, snuck back into the toilet, and took out a copy of the test. He read it over quickly, trying to remember as many questions as he could. Then he walked back to the classroom. Miss Nealedown was sitting behind her desk. The children were reading.
“Do as I told you?” asked the teacher.
“Yes, Ma’am,” the child answered, nodding.
“Good boy. Now go to your desk and read Chicken Licken.”
At break-time Shady and a few friends kicked a football around a grassy patch. He huddled them together and told them about tomorrow’s test.
“For a sixpence I’ll tell you the questions,” he proposed.
“Golly, that’s a pretty penny. Where’ll we get that?” a friend objected.
“Steal it from your Mum or Dad,” Shady suggested.
The boys all nodded, and Shady shared the privileged information. The next day they paid over the money and easily passed the test.
At eight years old the corruption of Shady’s character was complete, standing him in good stead for his later eventual chairmanship of a large colonial conglomerate, Charlatans Inc.
Storytelling Showcase
Please alert me to any of your upcoming storytelling events and other storytelling resources and I’ll gladly alert readers of Not The Bored Room. Here’s a start:
- Word of Mouth - Storytelling Skills for Creative Power in Communicating, a one-day and evening strategic storytelling skills workshop, hosted by Not The Bored Room School of Strategic Storytelling. Next one on the 17th of September 2015 at Tladi Lodge, Sandton. Here is the link to the flyer. https://www.bigchieftalkingbull.co.za/Workshop/brochure.html
- The International School of Storytelling, the initiative of my friends from afar Ashley Ramsden and Sue Hollingsworth, regularly run their three-month flagship course The Heart and Craft of the Storyteller, as well as many other short storytelling skills courses in the UK and elsewhere in the world including South Africa. The website address is schoolofstorytelling.com.
- Sue Hollingsworth will be running her wonderful five-week Storytelling in the Community course in Cape Town beginning on Sunday the 7th of February 2016. Places are filling fast. For more details contact Sue at [email protected].
- Write On regularly run storytelling writing courses, including an introductory Writing Scared Contact them at [email protected].
- Writers Write runs numerous workshops and courses useful to storytellers. Their website is writerswrite.co.za.
- The Writing Studio offers a series of one-on-one coaching sessions for writers and other storytellers. Contact [email protected].
- DISK, the Dutch International Storytelling Centre, runs regular storytelling workshops and courses. Contact them at discstorytelling.com.
The Tails Of This Story
We are a storytelling species and live in a world surrounded by stories. Some people balk at the thought of the word strategic next to the word storytelling. Good storytelling is not con-artistry, an association the term strategic storytelling may invoke. My use of the term is to imply the purposeful use of storytelling to achieve specific objectives in business and other organisations. I refuse to use the term narrative, which many people have suggested is a more appropriate word than storytelling in the organisational context. Narrative is mindful, where storytelling is hearty. We are the words we use.
Big Chief Talking Bull
a.k.a. Peter Christie, Strategic Storyteller
Not The Bored Room - School of Strategic Storytelling
179 Corlett Drive, Bramley, Johannesburg 2015, South Africa.
PO Box 551, Strathavon, Sandton 2031, South Africa.
(+2711) 440-8560 office (+2711) 440-8563 fax 073-236-0305 mobile.