Transformations...

"Hello Transformations, can I help you?"

"Have you got a stiletto in a size 12?  Red, if possible?"

"We're a theatre company.  The number you need is..."

When I first met Jackie R, she often gave me the tally of calls she'd received that day from men seeking a transformative experience on their transvestite or transgender journey.  It surprised her, in the back water of Cheadle Hulme, that so many men called in.  It was particularly surprising since she was a mask based theatre company. Each time, she would patiently read out the number they needed.

I was a relatively young Head of Drama in a secondary school at the time and received countless offers of interventions from new and established theatre companies which arrived in the form of leaflets.  In truth, I was the worst responder to much excellent work, tied up as I was in the business of surviving each day.  So, when my burgeoning pigeon hole was full, I'd re-file the leaflets in the car.  Here they would stay until such times as I (or more likely someone else) removed them.

Snotty at that stage was studying on a course about community arts.  There was an expectation that individuals on the course would find their own placement.  Snotty rifled through my (by now) impressive flyer collection in the car, and by chance, selected Transformation Theatre Company. On such whimsy are life-time friendships made.

Jackie answered the phone - probably relieved that Snotty actually wanted to participate in her world and immediately agreed a placement.  It was an exciting time for Transformation - they had (basically through more competent teachers than me) managed to book a tour of the Seasons shows and they were looking for Winter.  Snotty got the part.


I met Jackie sometime later, when she'd wanted lots of hands to take part in mask making.  I went along for the fun of it. We hit it off straight away.  As I am tall, Jackie was small.  I like to tell jokes, Jackie liked to laugh at them. So we quickly became firm friends. 

A few months later two significant life events took place.  I left teaching for a freelance life (without any idea of what that might look like) and Jackie got a job at Mid-Pennine Arts as an arts development officer.  It was an excellent coincidence and we began an enduring on/off working relationship over the next 20 years or so.  I know that without Jackie I would have had no career to speak of. 

She had an innate belief in me to make theatre or to make work with any difficult or challenging young person anywhere across the mid-Pennine district and to always take a can-do approach.  Without doubt, a person thrives with that kind of investment and belief.

Before too long, Jackie moved on to an exciting new position and became the first paid worker at BYT (Burnley Youth Theatre - a place that twisted and turned between us for the next 15/20 years or so).  I was invited over to talk about some project or other and was surprised to find a blue hut in an old disused quarry, with a portacabin next door.  This was her office. That day, I also met Alan D.  Initially, I thought he was just walking his dogs - a couple of lassie type critters - but he was actually coming in for the day to work as a volunteer.  Alan was one of what I later came to know as the 3 amigos and although he didn't know me from Adam, he immediately made a beeline for me.  That was the beauty of that place: if you were in, you were in and you were welcome.  Alan, Moira and Andrew were three key players who gave hours of their time for free at BYT to build a youth theatre like no other in the country: each in different ways, but each intensely. It might have been a blue hut in a field but those three had plans for it – those three wanted to transform the place into the single most important youth theatre anywhere in the UK.  I don’t know where that vision came from, but they each gave up their free time year on year to see it through to an impressive conclusion.

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