"Transitions" Pavement Pounders' journal: Article from Transitions One

A Million Miles and Back Again

Gillian White

Most decisions I have made in my life have been dictated by circumstances rather than any burning ambition to radically transform it. It is only now that I can see that a pattern has emerged and maybe I have reached my destination after all. My stopping off points always lasted longer than I had intended and two of them have consisted of living by water: Bodensee in Germany and Lake Como in Italy. However there has been a constant in my life and that’s been brief visits to Folkestone.

I was born in Ashford, Kent, then a small market town, when the most exciting thing to do was witness the Golden Arrow going through the station on its way to the continent, or follow the cattle being driven down Bank Street to the market. In the late 1950’s I spent summers in Sandgate with my friend and her widowed mother. I remember them as times of complete freedom when at the outdoor lido on the seafront in Folkestone we swam all day in freezing water, lost our pocket money in the Rotunda and cycled down Sandgate Hill praying our brakes wouldn’t fail. As long as we were home for tea no one worried about us.

I had always been interested in the arts which had begun perhaps with my education at Ashford School for Girls, and my spare time was spent simply enjoying the act of creation. At school we had intense needlework lessons where we learnt to make our own clothes and embroider. Our teacher wouldn’t tolerate mistakes. Everything had to be unpicked if it wasn’t up to scratch. My father always said that the soundtrack of my teenage years was one of the clank of the ironing board opening in order to press seams, my running footsteps up the stairs to sew on my machine and my exasperated shout when I realised I’d stitched a cuff to the sleeves the wrong way round. I taught myself to knit and weave on a small loom much to the amazement of my mother who had no interest in making anything. My father had made a theatre for my string puppets and I would write epic plays, make scenery and send visiting relatives to sleep as they sat through a three hour production which only ended when all my characters had died. After leaving home any spare time was spent teaching myself the techniques of lino printing, crewel embroidery and designing my own patterned knitwear.

To this day I still experience the same excitement when I purchase new materials to work with and plan how to use them. The colours and textures trigger ideas. Then I can’t wait to begin and feel bereft when I have to put them to one side and get back to everyday tasks.

In the early 1960’s there wasn’t much for young people to do in Ashford, so my friends and I would visit Bobby’s, the department store in Folkestone, ostensibly to have afternoon tea and listen to the pianist, but really to meet our boyfriends away from parental supervision. Yet Folkestone, via my parents, inspired my love of classical music at a young age. My obsession with opera began when they took me – crouching low in the car to avoid being spotted by my younger brother who would have caused a scene - to concerts at the Leas Cliff Hall. Here I saw Yehudi Menuhin, Vladimir Ashkenazy, John Barbirolli, a concert of Rigoletto, the Halle Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra as well as other big London orchestras. I also remember the magic of the moment when the curtain went up on the pantomime at the Pleasure Gardens in Folkestone and triggered a life-long love of theatre.

In the early 1970’s my grandfather, like many retired people came to the South Coast to spend his remaining years, but at the Four Square Hotel, Sandgate Road where he was staying, he met his second wife and moved into a flat in Castle Hill Avenue aged 79. On a trip back from Italy I travelled to Folkestone to visit him and introduced him to his great-granddaughter just before he died.

Encouraged to be independent and travel at a young age I can remember sitting on my suitcase one January on the outside deck of a ferry from Folkestone, hoping I wouldn’t be blown overboard or be sea-sick. In those days, unlike today’s luxury car ferries, there was very little indoor cabin space and no facilities at all. My youth seemed to have been spent in a state of excitement or fear that I would get on the wrong train to Southern Germany or lose my luggage. During the first visit to my exchange family I never quite knew whether we were going shopping, visiting historic sites or sailing on Bodensee. I would even misunderstand the time and turn up an hour late. This enabled me to learn German very quickly.

When my parents moved to Hythe in the mid 70’s, Folkestone Central again became an arrival point for my children and I visiting once a year. I would take them to the Folkestone Rock shop where they would stand for hours watching the rock being made or spend their pocket money in the joke shop.

My long transition period began when I got divorced and having to find a new career stumbled into Retail Management which came to an abrupt end in 1995 when the business I was working for went under. My health also suffered and I seemed to have reached a dead end with no desire to be continuously beating last year’s figures. It was more than time to consider my options. Unbeknown to me my real journey was beginning.

I was offered a place in a small community arts group run by Canterbury Social Services that was so successful it was extended to one day a week. At last I would be able to realize the act of creation that I had so much enjoyed from a young age. First it was simply a matter of finding the confidence to express myself through experimenting with different materials. Then I began to believe I could think about further education. Three of us gained places on the Access Course for Fine Art and soon I found myself fully engaged, drawing trees in the college grounds, having tutorials, writing essays and turning into a completely different person. Never believing I had the capability to go for prolonged study - after leaving school in the 60’s I’d rushed up to London to enjoy the excitement of the King’s Road - I was amazed to be offered a place on the part-time Fine Art Degree Course. With my theatre lodgers and a small mortgage I could just about finance it. This decision transformed my life and without knowing it I was approaching my destination. Folkestone.

After so many years spent in a restrictive working environment, this course, encouraging me to be adventurous, debate ideas and be part of the contemporary art scene, was to become the most influential experience in my life. I made many friends at university - we’ve just celebrated ten years since we graduated - but we couldn’t be students forever and I begun my career as a practicing artist. I started work on my house in Canterbury to turn it into an artwork and open it to the public. I exhibited all over Kent in group shows and came down to Folkestone on two occasions to show my work in Georges House Gallery. Many of my theatre lodgers purchased pieces of my work during their stay with me. They had lived in my house for a week surrounded by my work so how could they not leave without taking something with them! One friend practicing around Canterbury was involved with Strange Cargo’s first giant, Torrent of Littlebourne, in their Giants project. I helped by waving Torrent’s left arm for the 2006 Charivari in Folkestone and after the parade spent a blissful day on The Leas, enjoying the stunning views of the Channel and the wonderful community atmosphere. I began to think I could live in Folkestone. In fact I nearly returned again that day as I fell asleep on the bus to Canterbury and if I hadn’t been woken up by the driver, would have ended up back in Folkestone Bus Station.

At last I had to make a decision about the outcome of my journey and as Folkestone’s art scene was beginning to thrive it seemed the logical place. The road I lived in had become so over-run with student housing it had lost that cohesive, peaceful community of the last twenty years. It was time to sell up and move. For six years running after graduating, I had opened my house to the public for the Artists Open Houses event during the Canterbury Festival. My farewell exhibition took place at the same time I was showing prospective buyers around my house. One Saturday morning, twenty five viewers for the exhibition were dashing about the house and garden and the front door bell was ringing continuously when the estate agent rang to say she was bringing a client round. Denim skyscrapers on my dining room wall complete with sound recordings of New York streets, a giant scrabble board in the living room, carved wooden feet in the bath, a mural of Lake Como on the back of the house and an installation about life on tour in the bedroom where my Marlowe Theatre lodgers slept, filled my tiny house. I’m not sure the estate agent had ever conducted a viewing like this. When her client was asked about the art work she had to reply that she was here to buy the house. Yet she made an offer to buy there and then! So much for having to clear away clutter, maximize space and have coffee brewing to give the right atmosphere in order to sell a house.

In the afternoon I was talking to a regular visitor about going to Folkestone and he said he had a house there to rent which I could move to when I was ready. I was astounded. I had sold my house in the morning and found somewhere else to live in the afternoon without so much as stepping outside my home. Yet it was an emotional day. I was faced with parting with a much loved home and, as a city girl, moving to a small seaside town which was beginning to reinvent itself.

I could say I arrived in Folkestone with a bang. I had barely settled in when on 28th April, 2007, Folkestone had an earthquake. Fortunately the house I was renting was only slightly damaged and, standing in the street wearing pyjamas, was a way to get to meet the new neighbours. Though I was a little anxious, having dramatically uprooted myself after so many years in Canterbury, Folkestone’s regeneration was well under way and I had the first Triennial of 2008 to look forward to.

One morning I gave up unpacking boxes and went for a long walk through the Coastal Park and beyond. I found a semi-circular bench below the amphitheatre surrounded by shrubbery on the bank behind that made me invisible to anyone passing until the last minute. Though it was only April, the sun was very hot. As I sat in this secluded spot the only sound I could hear was the sea. Above the hedge opposite I could catch a glimpse of the most incredible blue and turquoise patch. The sky was so clear and the light so bright, I had to shut my eyes for a few moments. I could have been in the South of France or on a Greek Island. I could look out to sea and be happy just to be still. This, I thought, was why I came to Folkestone: all this on my doorstep and only having to walk to it.

It is 2011 now, I have a beautiful flat in the Creative Quarter with stunning views from the viaduct to the harbour and on clear days a glimpse of France. Early in the morning I can stand on my terrace, drink a cup of coffee and smell the sea. I can see ships in the Channel balancing on the horizon, looking as if they’ll topple over the edge.

Last summer my childhood friend came to visit and we stood together where the Lido had been and reminisced on our happy days of complete freedom in Folkestone. That freedom has changed into something else. With art and a new home merging to become more than a stopping off point my transformation feels well near complete. I began my journey with no timetable and no direction but my transition periods were building experiences for my homeward destination. An Odysseus returning to Ithaca it has taken a long time for me to arrive in Folkestone.

Folkestone too is on a journey. Like me it has had some very low periods and struggled to thrive. New generations will need other reasons apart from revisiting childhood memories to come. The ferries have gone and the Channel Tunnel speeds people past Folkestone. The new High Speed train taking less than an hour from London has brought more people, but it’s still a town of enormous economic divides and social problems. The Leas and the west end retain their architectural elegance and wide tree lined streets but seem almost separate from the east. I have watched as crumbling properties in The Old High Street have been refurbished or rebuilt through the generosity of Roger DeHaan and his vision to bring a thriving community to this end of Folkestone, despite the time it takes to regenerate a town, especially during a recession. Although after many years of struggling, I am now for the first time in my life, financially stable, I look around and see other people struggling.

As I walk up and down hill, from East to West Folkestone I absorb Folkestone’s history. A young girl sitting on a ferry, I had no idea that in 1914 young men had left from Folkestone harbour to fight in the trenches, never to return. Now, I can see the changes taking place. The Creative Foundation have a mission to put Folkestone on the map again as a national and international centre for the arts, improving access to education and promoting arts festivals. I hope that the visitors to this year’s Triennial will see Folkestone as a place which is on its own long journey to prosperity. I have found a safe harbour to stay. Though I am still building my life in Folkestone and on some days look out to sea and wonder if I should journey again, low tide prevents me leaving this particular harbour. Besides which I have no desire to travel further. My transformation can continue on dry land as a part also of Folkestone‘s regeneration.

So yes in a sense I have arrived in Folkestone. But in another, and if arrival is to do with creation, I never left. This drive to be creative, which I never question, has been with me for ever, as if the creative process itself were an ongoing epiphany. I embark on long complicated projects, forget to eat or sleep and before I have finished one piece, am thinking about the next. If you give me pencil and paper, I will have to reshape the pencil and sculpt the paper. I see the shape of mundane objects and want to give them a new identity, and then if people smile and reach out to touch them, I feel my idea has worked. At times, I want to be both architect and entertainer and feel the word artist is too restrictive for my practice. As a child, my mother told me I had too much imagination which I now realise was never a curse but something to celebrate. Having only snatched moments to be creative in isolation the freedom of expression I found at university meant that at last I could show my work and perhaps inspire others to realise it is never too late to transform one's life.

Transitions 1 & 2

Transitions 1 & 2 are published by Pavement Pounders CIC in the Creative Quarter Folkestone with contributions from mainly local authors,

Contributors to Transitions Two

Anon, Georgina Baker, James Bennett, Ray Duff, Maiuko Fi, Jim Fitzgerald, Maggie Harris, Paul Harris, David Lay, Trevor Minter, Mike Sanders, Maryanne Grant Traylen, Annie Webb and Stephen Welch.