Time to get creative as festivals all come at once

Get Creative - one of three creativity festivals happening in May 2020

The saying goes, you wait ages for a bus and then three come along at once. Well, it seems the same is true of festivals of creativity. Last Friday I was at the magnificent Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery for a creative festivals information meeting. There can't be many places where you can admire one of the world's finest selections of pre-Raphaelite paintings while waiting for a meeting to start.

I'd heard about the event through the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance. The purpose of the morning was to let people know about not one but three creative festivals taking place in May 2020 and, of course, to encourage people to get involved. The collaborative partnership aims to turn May into a month of creativity and culture through the coming together of three initiatives:

• the Age of Creativity Festival: (which runs throughout May 2020)
• the Get Creative Festival: (9-17 May 2020)
•  Creativity & Wellbeing Week: (18-24 May 2020).

Damien McGlynn, Project Manager for Get Creative, spoke on behalf of all three festivals and explained what each one was about. The ambition, said Damien, is to make May 2020 a month of creativity and culture, involving a series of events across the UK, with the three linked festivals working as a collective. The festivals are supported by a range of partnership organisations including the Arts Council, Age UK, the BBC and Voluntary Arts.

The first of the three festivals is the Age of Creativity (1-31 May) - an opportunity to celebrate older people as creative audiences, participants, volunteers and artists. As Damien pointed out, the term 'older people' (as defined by Age UK) includes any individual over the age of 50. The emphasis here is on creative or cultural events that are free (or low fee) and are 'age-friendly'.

The Get Creative Festival (9-17 May) is about inclusion and aims to give everyone the chance to get actively involved in a creative event in their local area. Again, events will be free or have just a small fee to cover costs, with an emphasis on participation. As Damien made clear, "The festival doesn't programme events but acts as a major platform for events, and sometimes this means shining a spotlight on existing groups and activities."

Creativity & Wellbeing Week (18-24 May) follows on from Get Creative, and has a broad theme of 'Positive Futures' (which includes areas such as mental health and young people, public health and everyday creativity.) With a strong focus on health and wellbeing, Creativity & Wellbeing Week, like the other two festivals, supports creative and cultural activity at no cost (or a low fee to recover costs.)

More events are planned, including a launch of Creativity & Wellbeing Week at the National Portrait Gallery on 18 May and a collective event in York in 15 May, where the question "Does creativity need a public health campaign?" will be discussed. In the meantime, even if the details are not yet finalised, artists and organisers are being encouraged to begin submitting their events for inclusion on the websites of the relevant festivals.

Words of Wisdom from ...Boogie Wonderland

Wisdom is often found in unexpected places. I picked up a copy of the Independent newspaper yesterday and read an obituary for the songwriter Allee Willis (1947-2019) who died on Christmas Eve. Now, I like to pride myself on my knowledge of pop music but I'd never heard of Allee Willis. It turns out she was a Grammy award-winning songwriter who, despite not being able to read music or even play an instrument, co-wrote a string of funky, soulful hits.  She had a hand in Earth, Wind and Fire's September and Boogie Wonderland as well as the Pet Shop Boys/Dusty Springfield collaboration What Have I Done to Deserve This?  She also co-wrote songs for the Pointer Sisters and the inescapable I'll Be There for You - the Rembrandts' hit theme tune from the TV series Friends.

I've recently retired from my job as a senior lecturer in mental health nursing - one of the reasons I now have time to read newspaper obituaries. I've retired partly to spend more time with my wife and family, having learnt in the last couple of years that it's a mistake to take for granted good health as you get older. In the light of this revelation, I've also realised it's best to spend as much time as possible with the people you love the most, doing the things you enjoy the most. So here am I writing about what I choose to write about. There are few greater pleasures for me.  Writing songs is another great joy. Forty years ago I'd write a new song every week; in recent years it's been more like a new song every two years. So any lessons that can be learnt from the likes of Allee Willis are worth noting. How do you get to be a songwriter? Well, Allee Willis happened to have been born in Detroit in 1947 and had the good fortune to be able to sit outside the Motown studios in their hit-making heyday listening to the records being recorded. And that, she once said, is how she became a songwriter. 

It makes sense: the best way to become a songwriter is to listen carefully to great songs and analyse how they're made - and, of course, it helps if you've got a way with words and tunes. The same applies to all types of writer - first, read a lot of good writing, then start writing.

But what struck a chord with me most about the Allee Willis obituary was a quote with which fatalists the world over will identify: "My whole career is based on two truths," she once explained. The first of these is: "What can't possibly happen, happens." And the second is: "What should be happening, doesn't."  These are important lessons, and worth keeping in mind at those times when, as the song goes, it hasn't been your day, your week, your month or even your year.