Piggy Tales

I have such mixed feelings about my yearning to be a storyteller. I find those thick woollen cardis deeply itchy, I just don't think comfortable shoes are attractive, and I can see from the puzzlement in my friends' eyes when I confess my secret dream that the word storyteller is somehow fusty and earnest, whatever the Independent may have claimed this weekend [http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/tall-tales-meet-the-storytellers-spinning-edgy-new-yarns-for-the-digital-age-2055972.html]

Over time though I've come to see it's the perfect medium for me. And there's something incredibly immediate, breathtakingly scary but liberating, about having nothing but words to bind an audience to you.

Admittedly, not many professional storytellers ply their art with a four-and-a-half-year-old trying to sit on their head. But then I'm not a professional.

So, last weekend, I had my first storytelling gig. We were camping with pigs - yes, literally sleeping in pig arcs, with piglets in the neighbouring fields (come to think of it, my friends got the same you're totally insane look at that as a weekend pursuit) - and I plucked up courage to offer my storytelling services.

Day one, huddled in straw as the elements lashed at the mud outside, we found Edward Lear's piggy-wig, and huffed and puffed and blew the house down. I unearthed a lesser-known Hans Christian Andersen tale, of the princess and the swineherd, and went on a limb with a story little a and I had invented the night before. And without a script, I could spin the tales just long enough for the rain to end.

Day two, we took refuge in the pub (the fabulous Royal Oak in Bishopstone http://www.royaloakbishopstone.co.uk/) as the heavens continued to pelt us. And without little a clambering on me, we had a much more focused group round the table, for the pig who cried wolf, and a story we all made up together.

I loved it. My favourite moment was in the pub. Two boys who'd mainly spent the weekend terrorising piglets, and who were waiting for the tractor-taxi, not even listening to the stories, were drawn in closer and closer. And the fear in their eyes: the belief that there really was a wolf stalking the table.

The Independent piece today talks about storytelling not just being for children under six, and I agree. I think it's timeless, that people of any age will be drawn in by the picture you weave with words. But children are the most exacting, and satisfying audience: if they don't like it, or are bored, they'll tell you. And if they love it, you don't just make them happy: their parents love it too.

I've definitely got the bug. Now I just need to pluck up the courage to do it again. Watch this space ...