At the Chalk Pit. 15 August 2009

I was a bit late to the chalk pit and got grief from Billy Butcher and Calvin (both ex armed forces), “you wouldn’t make it in the army”, they told me, and they were right.
After a good hour of conversation and drawing in the stones on the path I followed a route they suggested around the chalk pit, and then set up my gazebo in the same place as the day before.

The weather was more overcast and windy than the previous day so I set up my workstation and rested heavy stones on my drawing to stop it blowing away. The first couple of hours were good, quieter but this allowed me some time to get a few of the ideas together.

I had had a few problems with my hotel the previous night (I had been double booked) and needed to find somewhere to stay and mentioned this to one of the elderly dog walkers in passing. He offered for me to come and stay with him, he had a spare room. I was really touched by his generosity and although I didn’t stay I popped round to his house at the end of the day to say thanks.

At about 2.30/3pm I had attracted a good group of under 12’s that were interested in what I was doing and engaging really well, until a slightly older group decided to ‘join in’. They were interested for about a minite and then started being destructive. Starting off by taking the stones off the drawing they proceeded to throw them at each other, then scaring off the younger group and turning their attention to my equipment. After nearly pulling the gazebo down I decided to pack up so that all my stuff wouldn’t’ get destroyed.

I sat with next to my stuff for 10 minutes (as it was a lot to carry but I couldn’t leave anything) whilst getting a bit of verbal abuse and then walked with full arms to the car whilst having stones thrown at me. I put the equipment in the car and walked back to the pitch to clear up the stones and the group of 6 ran off.

I felt real sense of failure that I hadn’t been able to engage this group, anger that they treated me so badly and concern for any work I might design for this place.

Luckily I bumped into the family of nine I had met the day before and they lifted my spirits by bringing drawing of ideas they had from our previous conversation, and chatting again for well over an hour about how the chalk pit could be improved for families. We also spoke to neighbours of theirs consisting of two grandparents (that I had met the previous day), one parent and three young children.

This was an emotional day oscillating between kindness and violence, friendship and disrespect, passionate interest and apathy. I learned a lot about this place today.