I know I only posted yesterday, but last night I found out that I had won the Solihull Writers Workshop 2024 Non-Fiction Competition. It’s a rare occasion that I win anything and like all writers, I’m going to enjoy the hell and blow my own trumpet till my puff runs out and before the next onslaught of failure and rejection.
The brief was to write up to 1000 words on ‘why we tell stories’. I chose to use the piece to write a little memoir to my Dad who died last year…….
Fireman Tom (Why we tell stories.)
My father was a firefighter. A strong, kind, and handsome hero to us, his three little doting daughters, as well as to countless other souls he came into contact with in the course of his work. Every night, before we went to sleep, he would switch off the big light, sit on the edge of the bed and tell us a story. The hero of these stories was an imaginary figure called Fireman Tom. Every night we were enthralled by Tom’s latest exciting adventure. It was one of my favourite parts of the day. We would listen intently, silent and wide eyed as Fireman Tom rescued cats from tall trees and dogs from fast-flowing rivers, removed saucepans from small heads and freed skinny limbs from park railings, and regularly carried small children, just like us, to safety from fire and flood.
The parallels between my dad and Fireman Tom were not lost on me, and when he slowly told the story of the day in his low bed-time voice, it was him I saw in my mind’s eye. The way he looked when he got home in the evening, took off his uniform and tie and loosened his collar. His cobalt blue eyes. His thick dark Brylcreemed quiff. The hair on his strong tanned forearms, dark against the crisp white of his rolled-up shirt sleeves. His familiar scent of tobacco and Old Spice. Fireman Tom was my dad, and my dad was Fireman Tom.
Fireman Tom’s stories were always relatable and relevant to us. They were carefully suited to our ages and experiences. When we were very young, they were mostly about dogs and cats and playground mishaps. As we got older, so did the victims, and the accidents that befell them, portents about what might happen if we didn’t take care crossing the road, climbed or crawled into dangerous places, or played with matches. When Dad took a job as the Chief Fire Officer in a small town in Southern Rhodesia and we emigrated to Africa, Fireman Tom was rescuing small African boys from deep wells and saving families from raging bush fires.
But, like all things, we grew up and grew out of bedtime stories. More and more often our parents were in bed before us, especially at weekends. Now our bedtimes stories were reading teen magazines in bed, late-night horror movies or chatting on the phone for hours to our girlfriends. Fireman Tom and his adventures seemed childish and irrelevant and far behind us. But were they…?
Humans have told stories since the beginning of time. Indeed, Will Storr in The Science of Storytelling[1] states that storytelling is an essential part of what makes us human. He says that the stories we hear can shape who we are. That they can drive us to act out our dreams and ambitions and mould our beliefs. So, what exactly is it about stories and storytellers that can influence us in such a way?
Over the past couple of decades there has been a glut of research into why humans tell stories to each other and how these stories affect us and alter our thoughts and behaviours. Jeremy Adam Smith, in an online article for Greater Good Magazine in 2016[2], says that “Stories are told in the body.” Essentially, the research tells us that we feel stories – that a good story, well-told, can make the listener (or the reader) feel that they are inside the story. That they are living the experience with the character in the story, triggering a real physical and emotional reaction and several neurochemical reactions in their brains and bodies. If we feel stressed or excited by the situation in the story, this can trigger the fight or flight mechanism and the release of adrenaline in our bodies. If we are emotionally invested in, and empathise with, the character, this can cause the release of oxytocin, the so-called “caring” hormone that is present in nursing mothers.
Because we feel these things more when we experience them in the context of a story than we would if we were just presented with the facts, the memories of them stay with us and change our thoughts and behaviours. If my dad had just told us that many children are killed or injured crossing the road every day, and many more are killed or injured in house fires, I wonder if I would be holding my granddaughter’s hand quite as tightly when we cross the road together, or be warning her quite as seriously about the dangers of playing with or near an open flame. I wonder if I would be telling her quite as vehemently not to get too close to the riverbank. I wonder if I would always be seeking out the fire exits on a trip to the cinema or a concert. I wonder if I would hold the same high levels of trust and respect for members of the emergency services.
But of course, storytelling is about much more than influencing other’s thoughts and behaviours in a significant and lasting way. It is also about amusement and entertainment, establishing connections, forming and strengthening relationships and human bonds. Those moments spent with my father before we went to sleep each night were among the most precious of my life. Warm and cosy. Calm and loving. All his attention focused on us and ours on him. Yes, we were learning valuable life lessons through Fireman Tom’s adventures, but we were also learning about our father. About what he did at work all day. About who he was and what was important to him. About how much he loved and cared for us and how he would always keep us safe.
My strong, loving father finally succumbed to dementia last year with his three daughters at his bedside.
I wonder what Fireman Tom is doing now.
[1] Will Storr, The Science of Storytelling, Harry N. Abrams, 2020
[2] Jeremy Adam Smith, The Science of the Story, Greater Good Magazine, 2016
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