About the notebook

The Tin Whistle is a working notebook on the craft of entertaining children. It watches the rooms where the craft actually happens: the hired hall with its stacked chairs, the living room cleared for a birthday show, the school gym at three in the afternoon, the village fete with rain holding off. Each note is a worked evening, a question asked in a real room and answered from the record.

What the valise keeps

The book is organised like the performer's valise, in four compartments. The Parlour holds the indoor show: the forty-minute birthday routine, the table of tricks, the room of twenty seated children. The Ring holds the small circus: stilts, unicycles, juggling and the skills that take a pavement for a stage. The Fold holds what is made in front of the child: balloon modelling, paper tricks, the dog folded under watching eyes. The Fete holds the outdoor life: fetes, school fairs, fun days and the strolling performer who works a crowd that never sits down.

How a note is kept

Each note is written by the keeper of the book and checked by a second reader before it takes its number in the running order. Dates, rules and names come from the public record first: council guidance, safety documents, the trade bodies and the published record of the craft. Where the record stops, the note says so, and the sources consulted are named at the foot of every page.

A note on the address

This notebook took the address of a site that once belonged to a working children's entertainer. The Tin Whistle is not that performer, takes no bookings, recommends no act, and sells nothing. The habit of the craft remains: watch the room, check the record, file the note. Every page here is a reader's note, written for the craft and not for a booking.