Following on from two successful iterations of CAST-Off, in the summer of 2022 we offered a new programme of creative activities for local children – CAST-Away. Drawing on aspects of local heritage and the natural environment, CAST-Away took high quality creative engagement directly to local communities on the Lizard, with sessions at Poltesco, Polurrian, Porthoustock and Gweek.
CAST-Away began at Polurrian Cove with kite-making, sand casting and dam building. Dance specialist Kyra Norman played games with the group, encouraging them to move together as a shoal with their silver pilchard kites.
Activities at Gweek on Wednesday 10 August explored local nautical knowledge, with boat building, rope making and knots. Gweek boatyard hosted a model boat show and tours of their yard, and Flushing Yacht Club lent a set of nautical signal flags.
At the old Serpentine Works in Poltesco Valley, ceramicist Hannah Lawrence led clay activities, with children making crates of tiny decorated fishes, and local craftsman Don Taylor supervised serpentine polishing, while cuttlefish barges were launched from the tiny quay on the beach. Kyra Norman and musicians Elly Rowbotham and Patrick Ashton created a call-and-response hide-and-seek game between the upper Orchard and the lower Serpentine Works, encouraging movement and connection between the two parts of the site.
The rain came in for the CAST-Away finale on Wednesday 24 August and the day was very wet. But eager participants nonetheless turned up to make sound sticks with shells and bells and to join local musicians in a procession from St Keverne down the wooded valley to the beach at Porthoustock, where they took part in a Snail’s Creep dance and built a wood-fuelled kiln to fire ceramics from the previous CAST-Off and Away sessions.
In a nod to the Cornish tradition of Tea Treats, locally baked saffron treat buns were offered at each location.
We should like to thank The National Lottery Community Fund, FEAST, the Garcia Family Foundation and Helston Town Council for their generous support, without which CAST-Off and CAST-Away 2022 would not have been possible.