Page 24 - link magazine

This is Greendown • 4
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Greendown Gallery Drama commemorates Holocaust Day

Two university graduates who passed through A group of Year 9 students brought one of the new century's major
Greendown have returned to Swindon and are Karl
themes alive in December 2000 when a play they wrote for their
now making progress with the Nationwide Breakspear
GCSE Expressive Arts examination, about the plight of Kosovan
Building Society. refugees, here in Swindon, was runner up in the regional final of a playing a
Serbian
National Drama competition.
in The
I ^ The play `The Greetings of Stran- as a result of their public appear- Greetings c
gers' won the school £350 and the ances, subsequently spent two trangers'
students were invited to perform clays teaching 6 year olds during
at Swindon's Pilgrim Centre as Oliver Tomkins Infants School'
of the first national Holocaust summer term creative arts week.
Day Remembrance service. Working after school hours.
In June, the play was performed nine of the students in the cast of
for the last time to over forty `Strangers' also completed their
members of the University of the GCSE in Expressive Arts in two
Third Age. It was a profoundly terms, and two years early. All
moving experience for both audi- gained grades from A* to C. It
ence and performers. Several of was an intense but highly suc-
the cast, inspired with confidence cessful venture.

Louise Godwin (nee Wilkes), 26, left, was A letter from Anne Lubin, who witnessed `The Greetings of Strangers' and requested a performance for the
one of our first students when the school opened Swindon University of the Third Age (U3A):
in 1 985 and was in the firstgroup to take public 'Both my parents were immigrants. from Tsarist Russia after the communist takeover and from Poland at the time
exams in 1992. After A levels at New College, of the Nazi invasion, so I have no difficulty identifying with today's asylum seekers - whether they are fleeing for
Louise went on to take a degree in Media and their lives or economic refugees. I was moved to tears seeing your students performing 'The Greetings of Strangers',
Public Relations at Plymouth University, before remembering and comparing my parents' experiences and some of my own. Thank you for your efforts."
being employed by Nationwide in 1998.
She is currently a manager in the customer
services team with responsibility for improving Swindon City Festival, as seen from stilts
contacts between the Society and its members.
"I really loved being at Greendown. It gave
me a ve ry good feel for what the real world
would be like; I was treated as a 'grown up'
from the earliest days at the school. It was a
difference I noticed when I went to college."
Louise married last year and now lives close
to the school in Grange Park. In her spare time
she is to be found at public events as a volunteer
with the St John Ambulance.
Eve Osorio, 22, left Greendown in 1995 to
study A levels at New College, before taking a
degree in Psychology at Exeter University. She
returned to Swindon and joined Nationwide
last year where she works as a marketing
assistant in the Marketing and Communica-
tions Department. The Mayor of Swindon coun David Cox and his partner Jenni Dean, with our high stepping
Eve says the Greendown ethos is similar to stilt walkers ready for the Swindon City Festival parade on 21st July
what she has found at Nationwide. "We were
Year 9 and 10 students finished the summer term with an elevating experience when they
made to feel responsible about our futures; it took a prominent part in the annual Swindon Town Festival in July. Trained in three long
was a good basis for what I do now. I've also workshops by mime and street theatre artists, Cirque Bijou, fifteen students donned stilts and
found that the school's motto 'to think of the
dressed up as birds of paradise, to parade in the middle of the procession down Swindon's
other person' is also very much part of the
Regent Street.
approach at Nationwide."
Friends and family were out in force to admire and cheer them on. This is the second year
Eve is being sponsored by the company to Greendown students have taken a leading part in the procession; we are already looking
study for entry into the Chartered Institute of forward to next ear's festival.
y
Marketing.
Summer school lets artists explore their talents
Last seen heading west
across the USA on the way Dani Gray from Shasv and Cara Butler from
to Hawaii and Australia is Freshbrook were two of several students attending
Alex Ogle who attended Greendown who spent two weeks at the Gifted and
Greendown between 1994 Talented Summer School for young artists in years 6
and 1 999. After his gap to 9 held at Peaunoor primary school during August.
year he will be attending "Holidays can be a bit boring, so the summer
Sussex University for a de- school was great fun," said Dani.
gree in American Studies. Dani and Cara at the end of project exhibition