About Glenys

I started life 56 years ago and it's been a fairly strange experience so far. I like many things but mainly I like dogs, horses, rivers, trees and people's stories. I have always found people to be endlessly fascinating and maybe it was this that led me to years of social work where I, mainly, listened to people's stories and found that the true healing lies in being able to trust someone to listen to your story but also, for me, in being trusted with a person's story which has always felt like such an enormous privilege. I was also led into the world of social work as I felt very keenly, from a young age, a sense of injustice and unfairness in the world and I suppose I just wanted to be part of the solution and not the problem, at the risk of sounding very cliche.

I have been the Bard of Cambridge since 2017 which mainly involves carrying a really cool staff around on occasions which, legend has it anyway, has the power to make people break out in boils if they are being unreasonable.

I got into storytelling several years ago when I had an epiphany (or mid life crisis) and sold the house, packed my job in, lived in an old post office van with my dog and studied storytelling. Some people call it life adventures, some people call it a low boredom threshold but, whatever it is, I'm lucky to have had the luxury of choice. Having worked with refugees, the luxury of feeling safe enough to have adventures is not lost on me.

Why tell our stories?

Why tell our stories? Aren't we always told not to talk about ourselves growing up? Well, sharing our stories is nothing short of a revolutionary, humanity saving, world spinning thing to do. In a world where we are encouraged to buy STUFF, our stories will last longer than anything we could possibly buy or make. They stretch back through all of time and into a future that we do not yet know about. Through our stories we can create a healthier narrative for the future, a wealth that cannot be measured in stocks and shares and GDP. 

By sharing our stories, people are able to make a connection on a very human level, the narrative of the ‘other’ is broken down as we become more able to walk alongside and share the joy of one another’s stories rather than to fear them. We are living in extraordinary times and we are being fed a narrative of statistics and fear by the media and governments which is simply serving to fuel a mentality of ‘them and us’, be that migration, politics or whatever narrative seems to need pumping at the time. The truth is that there is no them and us, there is only us. We are all the same but gloriously different. As any storyteller will tell you – ‘An enemy is simply someone whose story you have not yet heard.’ 

People have been sharing stories forever and, by sharing our own stories, we are joining a long and rich lineage, more diverse and colourful than anything we could possibly make up. Telling our stories can also be deeply healing and validating of our experiences. We take responsibility for them and, once you start telling stories, you start having a keener insight into the stories that you generate, take part in and that exist all around you. 

 Our stories are the bedrock of humanity. They are what make us intrinsically human and without them we would not exist, that is how important they are! Our stories are all linked, how could they possibly not be?  How often do you hear someone’s story and think ‘Oh that reminds me of…’ I call that story popcorn as stories pop up in our memories and old stories shout 'hurray' for being seen and heard once more. By sharing our stories we forge friendships, families and communities. We learn about the lives and cultures of others and a sense of communion is created.  Our sense of identity is built upon the stories that are passed on to us and how many times do we think, 'Oh, I wish I'd thought to ask them...' 

It is so important that we tell our stories and, even more important, to listen to the stories of others.

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