People Speak Up: how Llanelli is lifting lost voices

Eleanor Shaw tells Dylan Moore how finding her own story led to founding a charity that is radically impacting the culture of a town

‘I’d lost my voice,’ says Eleanor Shaw, talking about a time before she made it her mission to provide a platform for an entire community to tell their own stories.

Taking three months out in Cambodia after what she describes as ‘a breakdown’ – and the breakdown of her marriage – Eleanor found herself ‘asking lots of life questions’. She wanted to help others, but knew that she needed to help herself first. 

She found answers in traditional storytelling. ‘The power of investigating your own story helps you to heal,’ she says. 

Park Congregational Church, Inkerman St, Llanelli (Glenn Edwards)

A successful teacher and theatre practitioner, Eleanor had led the Performing Arts course at Coleg Sir Gâr as well as coordinating entrepreneurship programmes in addition to her involvement in community theatre through directing and a range of other roles. But while such a background and range of experience might suggest it was a natural next step to become the founder of a social, mental-health, arts, health and wellbeing charity which connects communities through storytelling, it was not until after that time in Cambodia, during which she reunited with her husband, that she began to follow her current path, one that has changed the face of community arts provision in Llanelli. 

After discovering the power of storytelling to unlock significant aspects of her own life and story, Eleanor participated in a course at the Amari valley in Crete, which she describes as ‘a life changing eight days’. She and her husband then completed a course at the International School of Storytelling, which itself has roots in Wales through the experience of founder Ashely Ramsden at what he calls ‘The Holy Oak’ in Rhandirmwyn, north Carmarthenshire.

Eleanor Shaw leads a community lantern parade in Llanelli

Underpinned by what Eleanor calls ‘a Steiner philosophy of stripping away ego’, the applied storytelling technique propagated at the School of Storytelling ‘allows you to see your own story in folktales and fairy tales, and to make sense of yourself and your own story in the stories of others.’

Eleanor brought this philosophy first to Spoken Word Saturday, an event series she founded in 2015, and then to People Speak Up (PSU), a social enterprise founded with support from UnLtd and Social Business Wales in 2017. PSU is now a wide-ranging charity offering conversations, workshops, training, events and volunteering opportunities through partnerships with local care homes, Llanelli and Carmarthenshire councils, Carmarthenshire theatres, Hywel Dda health board, The Alzheimers Society, Tenovus and Macmillan.

Cwlwm workshop at People Speak Up, Zion Chapel, Llanelli (Glenn Edwards)

A key role in the charity’s expansion has been its location in what was once Zion/Seion, Llanelli’s largest Baptist Chapel. The chapel had been taken over by the county council as part of the Ffwrnes Theatre, and set up to house a cluster of social enterprises. But during and after the pandemic, demand for office space plummeted. So Eleanor took it upon herself to broker the key relationships that turned the venue into what she calls ‘a melting pot of creativity for people in the area’. Ffwrnes Fach is now Llanelli’s arts health and wellbeing hub.

People Speak Up has been successful from the start, with 25 people turning up on Day One to learn how to tell their own stories. Now 500 people access the building each week, and between three and four thousand on an annual basis – around 10% of the town’s total population. Eleanor is particularly delighted that it also attracts ‘professionals who come back’. She gives the example of author Joshua Jones, who now lives in Cardiff after time spent in various cities in England, but who is putting Llanelli on the literary map with his Dylan Thomas Prize longlisted debut story collection Local Fires.

Joshua Jones with Cwlwm workshop participants, Ty Celf, Llanelli (Glenn Edwards)

And just as Joshua’s stories lift the voices of the ordinary people of Llanelli, People Speak Up has breathed new life into what Eleanor describes as ‘a post-industrial town that had lost its voice, and its identity’.

‘There’s something in the air in Llanelli now,’ she says, emphasising that although PSU is not a religious organisation, its location within one of the town’s oldest and largest chapels provides a connection with the spiritual heritage of a place that was once ‘one of the powerhouses of Nonconformist Wales’. 

In addition to the Ffwrnes theatre, Ty Celf brings accessible art to the heart of the community, while Primavera provides an inclusive wellness space and the Second 45 record shop includes ‘a tiny music cafe that puts on small gigs’. ‘There’s a cultural life here,’ says Eleanor, ‘where there was nothing like that before.’

She admits that ‘it’s a challenge in the current climate [to keep things going] as everything we do is free to participate in. That created a big pressure to keep finding the money.’ But a modest grant from Arts Council Wales is for now ensuring that the social value and return on investment provided by the work of PSU continues to be priceless, especially in terms of health benefits.

And once again, Llanelli voices are raising the roof – in the Zion Chapel and far beyond.