The project made its first proper connection with an Originator on 18th November with an assignation on Liverpool Street Station with Johnny Melville. I told him I would wear a red velvet scarf and lurk outside Smiths. He told me he was bald and very handsome. He approached cautiously and in a soft Edinburgh accent murmured; 'The owl flies over the crooked steeple' 'I replied: 'But only when the moon is full' and we had made the contact. He is indeed handsome and his years creating physical theatre are evident. He produced from his baggage a parcel of flyers, photos and assorted other material for Salakta Balloon Band and Kaboodle dating from the early 1970s with an array of projects at Oval House and the Albany Empire, Battersea Arts Centre and Wandsworth Council play centres. Also a wonderful poster for Kaboodle's Mr Roland's Medicine which I remember seeing at St Luke's College Theatre as part of the alternative theatre seasons Peter Thomson used to organise in Exeter in the 70s and 80s. Over tea in a cafe on the station concourse we begin to assemble his personal history, or at least the most obvious pieces of it. The rest of his and the Companies' stories will be for a Volunteer to assemble with him next year. But there's two Company names for the project list and an enticing first set of archive material. An ideal starter contribution to the project
