26 / 5 /2009

My granddaughter Alice, aged 13, was in my care after my son and my daughter in law, Alice’s father and mother were in a fatal road traffic accident. My name is Pam and I am 68 years of age. It was very difficult for me let alone a small child to handle the loss of a close family member, so when Alice found out what had happened she retreated into herself for many months, and then we found out about the work the goes on at the sculpture workshop.

Alice was very dismissive of the idea at first to go to one of the workshops in the area as she had not been in contact with anyone other than her grandfather and me for around 3 months. We managed to contact Richard and tell him of our situation and explained why Alice was not keen on leaving the house. The following day Richard phoned us and said that he had a space at a creative workshop quite close to us so if Alice wanted to she could come along and join in, there would be youngsters of her age there too so she needn’t feel worried. We were overjoyed and Richard was so kind that we agreed straight away.

The following Tuesday came and Alice was nervous about leaving the house and as we lived in a very rural location we would have to drive to get to the community hall. She refused to go and began to cry and retreat into herself once again. We were so sad that a girl so young was so scared of an everyday occurrence that to you and I would seem like nothing. We telephoned Richard and told him that it was not going to be possible for Alice to come down today.

Later that afternoon we were sitting in the sun room and we heard a knock at the door. Expecting nothing more than a sales man we answered it, and standing at the door was Richard with a small group of children behind him. I still remember his exact words, “We thought, as it wasn’t possible for Alice to join us, that we would join her and if it’s possible to borrow your back garden for a few hours we’ll set up there ”

We welcomed them with open arms and soon we had a group of four 13 year old', Richard, his assistant sitting in our back garden at fold out tables sipping lemonade and having great fun creating faces in clay.

I don’t know what else to say because I can’t describe fully the change in Alice you would have to see it to believe it.  Alice still uses the sculpture kit that Richard left with us, it helps her to focus on something other than her bereavement she also made some new best friends that day that have helped her come out of her shell too and they still get together and create things in clay.

I would recommend the work that Richard does to anyone

Yours sincerely