I am a songwriter and actor and I am starting an Arts Council funded project about individuals who’ve inspired the lives of people living in Leicestershire today. With that in mind, I am organising meetings early in 2013 with groups of people from all parts of the community to hear and collect their stories.

With these stories, I will create an interactive performance (called ‘Father Used To Say’) using songs, stories and pictures which I will take into Community Centres, Social Centres, Libraries, Museums and other places where communities meet so that everyone can hear each other’s stories and hopefully show how our diverse communities share a common humanity.

I was recently invited by Katherine Brown to visit her ‘Points Of Interest’ group and talk about my project with a view to running a story gathering session when the project begins. I sang a song for them about one of…