I am typing today on a “new to me” computer, ex of Kensington Vision C.I.C, a company working in the beleaguered borough of the same name. My blog is about its director, Steve Faragher who I first met about five years ago. It was an inauspicious start; I was attending some computer training in connection with a magazine that some of us attending the Umbrella Centre had embarked upon. Called “pick Me Up” it was intended to be a creative outlet for ourselves in the group as well as sharing our stories with other service users of the centre. A barrier we had in producing the magazine was the parlous state of our IT skills. We had accessed some IT training via a scheme financed by a local housing association and were feeling we were making progress. Steve was a newly appointed manager on the project and it was incumbent upon him to tell us that all the computers had been seized by auditors pending an enquiry into suspected fraudulent claims of the schemes merits. Also, the staff that we had got to know in the few weeks previous had all been laid off! Over the coming weeks he attempted a damage limitation exercise were he tried as best he could to help us with the project. In that time he visited the Umbrella centre a few times, tried to encourage us as best he could, no doubt with a few rogue computers similar to the one I am typing on now. An abiding memory of that time was him enthusing about another project of his involving a community radio based in Kensington, a Kensington focused magazine and producing a cartoon strip for said magazine called “Kicking the Shit out of Kenny”-Steve’s take on the dog faeces strewn streets of the area. As we parted one afternoon I recall a throwaway line from Steve to the effect of-I spent most of the ‘80s depressed!-mm.. I wonder what that meant, it was some years before I was to find out.
A year or so back I was flirting with Twitter for the first time (see how digitally improved I was becoming) and suddenly Steve’s name pops up as a suggested connection. I sent him a “hello-do you remember me, the Umbrella centre, bla bla bla. Steve returns my message saying he does indeed remember me, hopes we are all ok and that he is writing from a hospital bed at the Liverpool Royal, awaiting heart by-pass surgery. I wasn’t expecting that!
During the last year and a half i had begun to be more familiar with Kensington or Kenny as everyone round here refers to it. I was running “meet the dogs” events monthly in Newsham Park and had met some lovely people during this time who wanted to contribute to the feel of the area- I blogged previously about it. Steve had re-emerged from his hospital bed, was back on task at Kensington Vision, producing some interesting radio shows from what my research unearthed and I thought it well to get back in touch. He invited me over to the radio station, now renamed Liverpool community Radio for a chat. He looked well and had introduced a new fitness regime into his life post surgery that included a hobby close to my heart, cycling. This interest in cycling had developed into a new project operating out of an adjacent shop that was selling and repairing old bikes. I was shown round the shop and introduced to Frank and Wally, his two star volunteers with the project. Surrounded by all the usual bike paraphernalia of wheels, frames, mudguards etc, I felt very at home. He had called the shop ONYA.............Bike, com’n keep up.
With this renewed interest in bikes Steve has now become a regular on the monthly Critical Mass bike ride so over several Masses we were becoming much better acquainted. My friend Al and I had made an appearance on a radio shoe that Steve did on Cycling in the city called Two wheels good, four wheels bad were we talked about the trials and tribulations of cycling in Liverpool and promoted the monthly ride.
Steve continues to still be l full of surprises though as I feel this next account illustrates. Last August found me attending a show by the Comedy Trust called Feeling funny. It is a culmination of just six weeks of training in stand-up comedy to explore mental health and the trainees are all helped to write and perform short comedy routines based on their own experiences. I was there to support my friend Marc but also with high hopes for a good night’s entertainment. Who should be there, wearing an extremely loud shirt but Steve- he is only on the line-up. And he made a good show of it, made me laugh, talked about Kenny and also his struggles with mental health were thrown in too.
It sure is a small world; particularly in Liverpool, and I too have now gone on the same training course, performed my 4 minute stand-up routine last December. It was a great experience and I would definitely recommend it others ; I did in fact do just that on a blog I wrote for WellPool. Lots of us on the WellPool Project have gone on the courses and have created a film library of the Feeling Funny shows; check the site for more on this.
More recently again Steve has helped me with my Community Interest Company Pets and Pals that I set up in 2014. Sharing some of his experiences of running Kensington Vision has been most instructive. He gave me a very good deal on this computer and is currently running a course I am attending on producing a radio show were in six weeks time I will hopefully have produced an hour long show on a subject close to my heart; it will be about dogs and health and a few other things thrown in for good measure. I might even see if Steve wants to be interviewed; he likes dogs and has a couple of spaniels in addition to all the other things in common we share.
A year or so back I was flirting with Twitter for the first time (see how digitally improved I was becoming) and suddenly Steve’s name pops up as a suggested connection. I sent him a “hello-do you remember me, the Umbrella centre, bla bla bla. Steve returns my message saying he does indeed remember me, hopes we are all ok and that he is writing from a hospital bed at the Liverpool Royal, awaiting heart by-pass surgery. I wasn’t expecting that!
During the last year and a half i had begun to be more familiar with Kensington or Kenny as everyone round here refers to it. I was running “meet the dogs” events monthly in Newsham Park and had met some lovely people during this time who wanted to contribute to the feel of the area- I blogged previously about it. Steve had re-emerged from his hospital bed, was back on task at Kensington Vision, producing some interesting radio shows from what my research unearthed and I thought it well to get back in touch. He invited me over to the radio station, now renamed Liverpool community Radio for a chat. He looked well and had introduced a new fitness regime into his life post surgery that included a hobby close to my heart, cycling. This interest in cycling had developed into a new project operating out of an adjacent shop that was selling and repairing old bikes. I was shown round the shop and introduced to Frank and Wally, his two star volunteers with the project. Surrounded by all the usual bike paraphernalia of wheels, frames, mudguards etc, I felt very at home. He had called the shop ONYA.............Bike, com’n keep up.
With this renewed interest in bikes Steve has now become a regular on the monthly Critical Mass bike ride so over several Masses we were becoming much better acquainted. My friend Al and I had made an appearance on a radio shoe that Steve did on Cycling in the city called Two wheels good, four wheels bad were we talked about the trials and tribulations of cycling in Liverpool and promoted the monthly ride.
Steve continues to still be l full of surprises though as I feel this next account illustrates. Last August found me attending a show by the Comedy Trust called Feeling funny. It is a culmination of just six weeks of training in stand-up comedy to explore mental health and the trainees are all helped to write and perform short comedy routines based on their own experiences. I was there to support my friend Marc but also with high hopes for a good night’s entertainment. Who should be there, wearing an extremely loud shirt but Steve- he is only on the line-up. And he made a good show of it, made me laugh, talked about Kenny and also his struggles with mental health were thrown in too.
It sure is a small world; particularly in Liverpool, and I too have now gone on the same training course, performed my 4 minute stand-up routine last December. It was a great experience and I would definitely recommend it others ; I did in fact do just that on a blog I wrote for WellPool. Lots of us on the WellPool Project have gone on the courses and have created a film library of the Feeling Funny shows; check the site for more on this.
More recently again Steve has helped me with my Community Interest Company Pets and Pals that I set up in 2014. Sharing some of his experiences of running Kensington Vision has been most instructive. He gave me a very good deal on this computer and is currently running a course I am attending on producing a radio show were in six weeks time I will hopefully have produced an hour long show on a subject close to my heart; it will be about dogs and health and a few other things thrown in for good measure. I might even see if Steve wants to be interviewed; he likes dogs and has a couple of spaniels in addition to all the other things in common we share.