LIFE LESSONS: We are all storytelling beings (From Oxford Mail)

Today we talk to Cath Nightingale publicity officer of Oxford’s Story Museum

10:00am Wednesday 1st February 2012 in Columns

WHAT I’M CALLED: Cath Nightingale.

MY AGE IN YEARS: 61.

WHAT I DO: Marketing and communications for the Story Museum, Oxford (still at pumpkin stage). We’re in the process of transforming buildings in Pembroke Street into a centre for story and storytelling, opening fully in 2014. Meanwhile, we have some exciting events planned this year – and unusual window displays. I’m head of Art and Mischief, so watch this space. I’m also on the board of Artweeks.

WHERE I LIVE: Summertown.

WHO I LOVE: My family – and my work colleagues, a hugely creative bunch.

HAPPIEST YEAR: 1982 and 1987, when I had my children. One was an IVF baby: their arrival was special.

DARKEST MOMENT: September and October 2010. My 88-year-old mother hovered between life and death for two months in intensive care. During that time, my father was diagnosed with cancer and he died 10 days later.

PROUDEST BOAST: Apart from my children, cycling hundreds of miles in Cuba, India and Brazil and raising several thousand for charity. I am a total couch potato, the trips got me off my backside and across three continents, with a great assortment of adventures thrown in – including a shoot-out in a convent we were staying in.

WORST WEAKNESS: The ones I’ll admit to in public: saying yes to things I really should draw the line at, including sweet chilli crisps and too much work. I also confess to destroying cars: a garage owner once walked round a battered VW, with dents on all sides, that I was trying to sell and said he liked the “new, narrow look”.

LESSON LEARNED: The writer Ben Okri said we are all storytelling beings. Humans love narrative. If we can make sense of our own stories, it helps us make sense of our lives.

DULLEST JOB: I once sold ice creams on a French beach. They all melted away, including me after one day.

GREATEST SHAME: A huge array of immensely talented writers visit the Story Museum, including Michael Rosen, our ‘curator of stories’. I wish I had their gifts.

LIFELONG HERO: I have several, including Florence Nightingale, natch. But my mother is probably the longest-serving member of that elite corps. She is the size of a small bird, feisty, humourous and never sorry for herself, despite having crippling arthritis and now only half a colon. Within weeks of coming out of hospital, she got rid of her wheelchair and acquired a giant dog. Whenever she feels low, she gives herself a talking to, goes off and makes a cake.

OLDEST FRIEND: I have three or four who go back more than 50 years. We’ve seen each other through domestic dramas, delinquency and death and still go camping together.

FAVOURITE DREAM: An anonymous donor gave the Story Museum more than £2m, enabling us to acquire the lease on our buildings. We still need a few more million to open. So I dream of another fairy godparent and magic wand.

BIGGEST REGRET: That we can’t go back in time and put the lessons learned into practice when they were most needed. There’s a saying: experience is the comb that nature gives us when we’re bald. What’s the point in realising, for example, that walking everywhere is good for me when I’ve just acquired a free bus pass?