Life, Love & Literature

Back in Octo­ber Jack audi­tioned for, and got into, the junior cast of the Gosport Gang Show.

For those who don’t know, Gang Shows are the­atre shows put on by Guides and Scouts (and Brown­ies and Cubs).  They are based on the old musi­cal hall con­cept with songs, danc­ing and drama sketches.  In Gosport, at least, they are not some quickly cob­bled together, school stage affair, they are prop­erly laid on the­atre shows run­ning for a week and per­form­ing to prob­a­bly well over 1000 peo­ple.  All organ­ised by a tremen­dous team of volunteers.

What has it meant for us?  Well it has meant that Jack has been out a lot (not alot!).  Rehearsal one evening a week at which he stayed late most weeks (since the friend giv­ing him a lift had a daugh­ter in the main cast too) and on a Sun­day day­time too from Feb­ru­ary.    It has meant that we are extremely grate­ful to my friend who scooped him up with her brood and drove him there and back every Thurs­day mak­ing it pos­si­ble for him to do it.  And it has meant we have become very thank­ful for the car (the car that we weren’t sure we wanted, never mind needed) being able to take him there on a Sun­day was good and as for show week when he was there until 10pm/11pm every night, well it was worth its weight in gold.  It has been a con­straint!  We have not been able to go over to South Wales for the last 6 months as Jack had com­mit­ted not to miss rehearsals, week­end trips have been cut short, we’ve had to be home by 3pm on a Thurs to make time to eat before rehearsals mean­ing we’ve missed home ed group activ­i­ties… The late night on a Thurs did effect moods (his and there­fore mine) on a Fri­day and not in a good way.  And as for show week (and the week before) well there was no point try­ing to achieve any­thing at all then for any­body (I think Pete and I were more tired than Jack).

Was it worth it? YES!

Jack has had the time of his life, he loved every minute of it.  Which makes every­thing else insignif­i­cant really.

Rehearsals gave him the oppor­tu­nity just to hang around with kids all his age or older.  He is older (if only by a month in some cases, but in oth­ers by a year or two or even three) than pretty much all his friends so he appre­ci­ated not being the old­est.  Because they were older they were less super­vised and given more respon­si­bil­ity and free­dom, which they seem to have used up play­ing Top Trumps. There was also a (cheap) tuck shop which was a draw  He made new friends and reignited old friend­ships.  His best friend from pre-chool, whom we lost touch with over the years despite them liv­ing 2 mins walk away, was in it and the boys got on as well as ever and are now at the age where they can just go down the park and keep the friend­ship going them­selves with­out need for the dreaded ‘playdates’.

His con­fi­dence and inde­pen­dence have come on mas­sively.  If at this point last year he had been required to get up on stage in front of sev­eral hun­dred peo­ple dressed in a skirt, wig and bra top and do the can-can (no unfor­tu­nately I couldn’t take pho­tos )then I’m not sure of the response, I had enough trou­ble get­ting him into cos­tumes for his drama plays (he didn’t want to ‘look a fool’).  He didn’t bat an eye­lid, indeed he was rather pleased with him­self and acknowl­edged that skirts are comfy but no he won’t adopt them as his style

But this con­fi­dence is more than just about prac­ti­cal things he is not afraid to do.  I can see it com­ing through inter­nally, he is more con­fi­dent in him­self.  I see it when I watch him with groups of other chil­dren, he is less of a fol­lower and has more sense of his own value.  He is still qui­eter than most but a lot of that is down to man­ners, he is never going to shout his way to the front of a group he is too polite for that.

This inner con­fi­dence is also com­ing through at home.  He is less reliant on my good opin­ion and guid­ance and more keen to go his own way.  Which although in prac­ti­cal day to day terms is not nec­es­sar­ily good, lead­ing to a period of rene­go­ti­a­tion of bound­aries and rela­tion­ships aka shout­ing and door slam­ming, it is as it should be.  I am a con­trol freak, it is bet­ter I learn to back off a bit now and let us build a more equal rela­tion­ship (although with well estab­lished bound­aries) as we head towards teenage years.  In 10 years time hope­fully he will have grown up and flown the nest, best to gain inde­pen­dence by degrees and with con­fi­dence in himself.

Here’s Jack’s view of show week

Hi there.

Mum said I had to write a post about the Gosport Gang show so here it is.

The cos­tumes I wore were Bronze shirt for the open­ing. Edwar­dian, Skirt and coster­munger for music hall. Scare­crow and music note shirt for Never For­get. Then we had an inter­val. Then we dressed up as cow­boys for  Hoe down. Cave man for Cave dwellers. and Our cub uni­form for the Finale

We did the same every day except some days I did the Finale and some days I didn’t.

We also had to wear make up but most peo­ple acci­den­tally licked off their lipstick.

It was fun.