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Gillian Walmsley...member of Silver Company - our company for Grown Ups and Mum to Lauren member of Sapphire with her debut blog...

I am new to writing blogs but I wanted to try to show Sarah how good Yew Tree is.  She does a marvellous job with all the young people in Wakefield from the young to now the more mature.

I'm a parent myself to a girl who goes to one of the Yew Tree groups: Sapphire and she loves it, it has given her confidence to speak out and make new friendships so when I found out about Sarah starting a new Yew Tree group this year for adults I decided to give it a go. I don't have much confidence in myself or make friends easily so don't have much of a social life.

The Yew Tree group for grown- ups has been going now for two terms, about ten weeks. We are called Silver Company. We have done numerous things like Physical Theatre, which I really like, and doing plays/scripts by different playwrights such as Noel Coward, Shakespeare etc. Some weeks I have been really surprising myself joining in with everyone and acting in front of people which I loathed at school. But at Silver Company I'm really enjoying it, the company is good for me, everyone is friendly and because it is the same people who go quite regularly you get to know them and they get to know you and your capabilities.

This week there was only six of us but we still managed to learn and enjoy and most importantly have a laugh. We learned how to write a script: how to start by thinking of our main characters and their abilities and styles, thinking of our story arc: the beginning, climax and end, and at the end we all wrote one scene of our play.

One thing I don't feel ready for yet is doing a show in front of an audience as my memory isn't good for learning lines and I don't feel my confidence is that good yet. Although I'm sure Sarah will be trying to persuade us soon.


Silver Company and Yew Tree generally, are really good for people who enjoy drama, acting, meeting new people/friends and good for anyone who wants to help their self confidence. I enjoy going to Silver Company although due to work commitments I often have to miss about one a month. I'd recommend it to anyone so if there is anyone out there reading this who is a parent of a child already going to  Yew Tree, why don't you come along and give it a go yourself .You can then find out some of the things your children are doing by learning about it yourself. We meet on a Wednesday at 6.30-8.00pm at West Yorkshire Theatre Dance Centre in Ossett.

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