Hi there,
This is Steven.
These days I like to tell people before my story starts that I'm a real human being.
This is my art and my work.
And something I put a huge amount of energy and thought and time and passion into.
And so I hope that when you listen tonight.
.
.
You hear the humanity in my voice.
Because it's all human.
And it's all meant to be.
To help you fall asleep.
And who is that?
Hello my friend.
Welcome to your sleep story.
My name is Stephen Dalton.
I'm an Irish Storyteller.
And it's my great privilege to be the voice that you listen to.
As you go to sleep.
Tonight.
One of the things I love about my country.
Is that people still say hello to each other.
I think.
Less so than they used to.
Personally.
I love saying hello to a stranger.
The little buzz of joy you get when they respond.
And the feeling of well,
Shared humanity.
The feeling that we're all in this together.
Do you like saying hello to people on the street?
Let me know in the comments.
And that's what tonight's sleep story is all about.
A little town called Mumbleton.
Where no one says hello to each other.
Until one day,
An old lady moves in.
Maybe things change for the better.
That's all still to come.
But first.
.
.
Let's do the relaxation session,
Which takes a few minutes,
Before tonight's sleep story starts.
I'm going to count down from 10 to 1.
Very slowly.
And as I do.
Allow yourself to let go.
More and more.
Get yourself nice and relaxed for tonight's story.
Feel the support.
Of the bed beneath you.
Or the floor.
Or whatever you lie upon tonight.
Beneath all of that.
Feel the support.
Of the Earth.
Our home.
Constant support.
And as you become aware of that.
Grounding.
Calming support.
See if you can.
Let go a little more now.
Just.
.
.
Ease into this moment.
A little more now.
Nein.
You.
Are safe.
Tonight.
Allow my voice.
To be a friend.
To be an anchor of safety.
Knows this.
My voice will never take you to anywhere unsafe.
It will only ever take you to safety.
Places.
Places of coziness and comfort.
Places where stories are told.
With a spirit of kindness.
And human understanding.
And allow that vibration.
To enable you.
To just Be here.
And listen.
And move closer and closer to sleep.
Become aware of your body now.
Feel into your body.
Where are you holding tension?
Where do you perhaps feel pain?
Maybe it's in your feet?
Maybe in your lower legs your size.
Hips.
Your belly.
Your chest.
Your butt.
Maybe your neck or shoulders.
Your arms.
Your hands.
Or maybe you're like me.
Do you hold tension in your face?
Or in the top of your head wherever you're holding tension wherever you're feeling pain,
If you are.
See if becoming aware of it.
And help eases a little.
Seven.
The day.
Is.
Whatever has been.
Has been.
Whatever will be.
Will be Whatever thoughts you might be having.
About the future or the past.
Know this.
Neither of those places exists.
Opposite to you have.
Is now.
Is this moment.
So choose to be kind to yourself in this moment.
And begin to let go.
If a sword arrives.
Don't face it.
Welcome it.
It is a part of being human.
See it for what it is.
A thought.
Then don't follow it.
Let it flows away.
Like leaves floating away on a moonlit river.
Were clouds passing by.
Through a starlit sky.
6.
Peace.
Lives within you.
I promise you it does.
It is always there.
It is always just.
Waiting to be found.
Wasting.
To be felt.
To see if you can find that peace tonight.
Ask yourself.
Where does it live within me?
Sometimes I think I find it in my chest.
Sometimes in my head.
When you find it.
It can have an immediate effect on your whole body Sometimes it can be found.
Through a simple,
Deep breath.
Let's take one now together.
Breathe in through your nose.
And out through your mouth.
Maybe you found your peace.
Or maybe you're on the way to.
Don't force it.
It will come.
If it hasn't already.
Five.
This is your moment.
This is your time.
Allow that fact.
To enable you.
To let go completely.
You have nowhere to be.
Nowhere to go.
Allow yourself to indulge in this moment.
For it.
Perhaps allow a little gratitude now.
Gratitude for the simple things.
Are the ones who love you.
And do you love?
For the roof over your head tonight.
With the breath in your body.
With the ability to lie here tonight.
And listen to a sleep story.
Begin to engage with your imagination now.
Begin to see.
A rainy,
Crooked town.
Surrounded by hills.
Green Hills.
And in that town.
There are people.
Who never say hello to each other.
But maybe.
.
.
That's all about to change.
Checking in with your body one more time now.
Your body has worked hard for you today.
It's time to give it rest.
Completely letting go now.
As I tell you.
Tonight.
Sleep Story.
There is a town.
Far off in the wet green folds of the hills,
Called Mumbleton.
And it rains there almost all of the time.
This,
As you will know,
If you have been paying attention to the world,
Is no bad thing in itself.
Rain can be the coziest weather there is.
But.
.
.
Rain is only cozy.
If you were doing it properly.
And for as long as anyone could remember.
The people of Mumbleton.
Had been doing it wrong.
They had all the right equipment.
Forty-one stout little houses Stood along the crooked streets With deep doorways and fat chimneys.
And every evening forty-one columns of wood smoke Went up into the rain from forty-one glowing fires.
The firewood was dry.
The casual's sighing.
The armchairs were deep.
And the rain came down on the slate roofs with a sound like this.
Gentle applause.
It should have been.
The coziest town in all the world.
The trouble was.
The quiet.
Not the good kind of quiet.
Which is the kind you share.
The other kind.
In Mumbleton.
Nobody spoke to anybody.
Unless it was.
Absolutely unavoidable.
And the people of Mumbleton had become world champions at making it avoidable.
Nobody said hello.
Nobody said.
Good morning.
Or good evening.
Or lovely weather for ducks.
Blood.
How is your chimney drawing?
If two Mumbletonians found themselves approaching one another,
On the same pavement.
Both would suddenly discover something fascinating.
About their own boots.
And study it carefully.
Until the danger had passed.
Umbrellas were held low over the face,
Like lids at the bakery.
Mrs Quince handed the buns across the counter.
In perfect silence.
And the money was left on a little china saucer.
So is this.
Not even fingers had to meet.
At the grocers,
Mr.
Cruddock.
Had chalked the price of everything on little slates.
In his best handwriting.
So that no customer would ever need to ask him a single question.
And none ever did.
At the post office.
Miss Prue Feather slid the letters out under the brass grill.
And then became deeply busy counting stamps she had already counted.
And it had been eleven years since a word had crossed that counter.
In either direction.
They were not unkind people.
If your parcel was too big for the leisure box.
It would be left neatly in the dry of your porch.
This was simply the.
.
.
Somewhere along the years.
The whole town had got out of the habit of talking.
The way you can get out of the habit of whistling.
And nobody.
Wanted to be the first to start again.
In case they had forgotten how.
And so on rainy evenings.
Which was all of them.
The forty-one fires crackled away.
Behind forty-one closed doors each little household sitting beside its own flames.
Keeping its warmth.
And its thought.
Entirely to itself.
Mrs.
Quince had been selling buns to Mr.
Cruddock.
Every morning for 11 years.
And if you had asked either of them.
The other one's first name.
They would have had to go home and have a long think about it.
That is how things stood in Mumbleton.
On the streaming wet Tuesday.
When the number nine bus came splashing up the valley.
With Mrs.
Marigold Honeywell inside it.
Mrs Honeywell was small.
And round.
And all.
With white hair pinned up under a woolly hat.
Cheeks like two rosy apples.
And an umbrella of the brightest buttercup yellow.
Which,
The moment she stepped down onto the pavement and put it up,
Became the only yellow thing in the entire town.
She had with her a rocking chair,
A copper kettle,
A carpet bag,
And a large tin of gingerbread.
And she was moving into the little crooked house.
At the end of chimney row.
The one with the round window,
Which had stood empty for years.
Hello.
She said to the bus driver as she got down.
The bus driver was so astonished.
That he pulled the wrong lever.
And opened both doors at once.
And sat there opening and shutting his mouth like a letterbox while the rain blew in.
Hello,
" she said to Mr.
Craddock,
Who was standing in the doorway of his shop.
Mr.
Cruddock looked quickly up at the sky.
As though the word might have fallen out of a passing cloud.
And then went inside and rearranged his slates.
Hello,
She said to Miss Feather through the window of the post office.
Miss Feather began counting stumps at tremendous speed.
Hello.
She said to old Mr.
Weatherby,
Who was walking his little brown terrier along the lane.
Mr.
Weatherby examined his boot.
But the terrier.
Whose name though nobody in town knew it.
Was Alfie.
Wagged his tail so hard.
That his whole back half went with it,
And got a scratch behind the ears for his trouble.
Mrs.
Honeywell carried her rocking-chair into the little crooked house,
Lit a fire in the She had a wonderful knack with fires.
And had it going in three minutes,
Snapping and golden.
Hung her copper kettle over it.
And set down to rot.
And to listen to the rain on her new roof.
It seems a quiet sort of town,
" she said to herself.
Well,
I have lived in a great many places.
And I have said hello.
In every single one of them.
And I don't intend to stop now.
And she rots.
And the fire crackled.
And the cattle began to sing.
And the rain went on.
And turn.
The next morning she went out under the buttercup umbrella and said hello to everybody she met.
Nobody said it back.
The morning after that.
She did it again.
And the morning after that.
She said hello the way the sky said rain.
Daily.
Gently.
And without the slightest discouragement.
She said it to the milkman.
And the postman.
And the bunting family next door,
Whose curtains twitched.
She said it to Mrs.
Quince over the buns.
And to Mr Cruddock,
Over the potatoes.
And to miss Feather under the grill.
And to Mr Weatherby and Alfie on the lane.
Morning after morning.
Rain.
After rain.
The town,
To begin with,
Defended itself as best it could.
Curtains twitched shut as she came up the street.
Shopping was done at cunning new hours.
Mr Cruddock chalked up two entirely unnecessary extra slates.
But there is no timetable in the world.
That can outwit a small,
Determined old lady.
Was nowhere particular to be.
And besides.
There was the gingerbread.
You see?
Mrs Honeywell baked this every Wednesday.
And the smell of it came out of the round window.
Of the little crooked house.
And travelled the whole length of Chimney Row through the rain.
Under doors and through keyholes.
Saying,
In the language of smells.
Exactly what she kept saying in words.
There is no chalking a slate against that.
And Here is the thing about a hello.
Does not mind waiting.
A hello,
Once said.
Bounce off a person and fall into a puddle and drown.
It goes in through their ears.
And down inside them somewhere.
And it sits there.
Warm like a coal.
Whether they answer it or nothing.
The first citizen of Mumbleton to answer her properly was,
Of course,
The dog.
Dogs have never once,
In all of history,
Mastered the art of pretending not to notice somebody.
And it is one of the very finest things about them.
By the end of the first week.
Alfie.
Was towing Mr.
Weatherby up Chimney Row every morning at a tremendous rate.
In order to be set,
Allowed to.
And sat down in front of Mrs Honeywell.
With his ears up.
And his tail sweeping the wet pavement.
Like a little broom.
While his owner stood at the other end of the lead.
Studying his boots.
And privately wishing he had a tale of his own to answer with.
The second was Tom Bunting,
Aged seven,
From next door.
Tom had been watching Mrs Honeywell through the gap in the curtains for days,
The way you might watch a comet.
One drizzly afternoon.
As she came up the path with her shopping cart.
Little Tom was hanging over the gate.
And before he had decided anything at all.
The word hopped out of him.
Said Tom Bunting.
Hello.
Said Mrs Honeywell.
Beaming like a lighthouse.
Tom vanished indoors,
Like rubbish down a hole.
Extremely pleased with himself.
And stood with his back against the door,
And his heart going like a drum.
That's nice.
At his own fireside.
While the rain tapped at the window.
Tom practiced.
Hello,
He said to the coal scuttle.
Hello,
He said to the fender.
Hello,
Hello,
Hello,
He said to the cat.
Who received it with the cat's usual policy of appearing to be asleep.
Goodbye,
Morning.
He was word perfect.
The next day he said it first,
Before she could.
The day after that.
He got a piece of gingerbread over the gate for his trouble.
While his mother watched from the dry of the doorway.
And then,
To her own great surprise,
Mrs.
Bunting heard her own voice call,
Thank you,
There is a rain.
Which was the most?
Anybody in Mumbleton had said out of doors.
In years.
And then came the famous morning.
Of Mr.
Weatherby's accident.
It happened on the corner by the post office.
In a proper straight down rain.
Mrs.
Honeywell came round the corner under the yellow umbrella.
Alfie went into his usual delighted circles.
And she said.
.
.
As she always said Hello,
Mr.
Weatherby.
Hello Alfie.
Hello,
" said Mr.
Weatherby.
It slipped out of him.
Before he could stop it.
The way a hiccup does.
He was so astonished at himself that he raised his hat.
Which had not happened to that hat in a very long time.
And the rain got in on his bald head.
Cool and clean.
And he found that he did not mind in the slightest.
In fact.
Standing there in the pouring rain,
With his hat in the air,
Old Mr.
Weatherby.
Felt curiously light.
As though he had put down a parcel he had been carrying for so long.
He had forgotten it was heavy.
Lovely rain,
" he said.
Two more words,
Tumbling out like sheep through a gate.
Beautiful.
Agreed Mrs Honeywell.
It's coming down very well organised today.
And that was the whole conversation.
But by tea time.
In the mysterious way of small towns.
Every single person in Mumbleton.
Knew that Weatherby had spoken.
And forty-one fires crackled that evening.
Beside forty-one people who were all secretly thinking the same thing.
That it hadn't sounded difficult,
Particularly.
That it hurt,
If anything.
Sounded rather nice.
After that.
The hellos.
Began to spread through Mumbleton,
The way warmth spreads through a teapot.
Slowly and from the inside.
And Zen.
All at once.
Tom Bunting said hello to Alfie.
And then,
To Mr.
Weatherby.
On the other end of Alfie.
Mr.
Weatherby.
Finding the word looser every time he used it.
Said it to Mrs Quince across the Buns.
And Mrs.
Quince went pink with pleasure.
And put an extra bun in the bag.
And thus was the morning the town discovered that her first name That was Dorothy.
Mr.
Cruddock.
Held out for a long while.
Behind his little chalked slates.
Until the day Mrs.
Honeywell Admired his handwriting.
As which he went as a red.
As one of his own to matters.
And said,
Nasty weather outside.
Which for Craddock was practically a speech.
And slipped an extra sausage into her purser.
Even Miss Feather,
In the end,
Spoke under the brass grill.
A small,
Rusty voice at first,
Like a gate that once oiling.
And sweeter every day after.
And it turned out that Miss Feather knew more about everybody in Mumbleton than the rest of the town put together,
On account of the postcards.
And was wonderful company.
Even the driver of the number nine bus was collected in the end.
Every Tuesday.
When he pulled up in the square.
Mrs.
Honeywell would be there under the yellow umbrella to say hello.
And every Tuesday he managed his levers a little better.
Until the week came when he got the doors right first time.
Hello,
Missus.
Before she could beat him to it.
And drove off up the valley,
Grinning like a schoolboy,
With his windscreen wipers keeping time.
Because Once you have said hello to a person,
You see.
.
.
The next thing you learn is their name.
And once you know their name You find yourself talking.
And the people of Mumbleton discovered that they had been sitting all this time.
On an absolute goldmine of things to talk about.
Namely,
The rain.
The rain was an excellent subject.
It was always doing something.
It had come down last Thursday like stair-rods.
It was mizzling today,
Very fine and secret.
There was a big brown puddle forming again at the bottom of chimney row that ought to be seen to.
Doorsteps that had been for standing on.
Became doorsteps for standing about on.
Umbrellas rose from lit heights.
Friendly height.
And stayed there.
Firewood began travelling from house to house under tarpaulins wherever a stack ran low.
And it always came back as something else.
A jar of dumps and jams.
Amended gate hinge.
A story.
In the middle of Mumbleton on the square.
Stood the old meeting-house.
It was a fine tour building.
With fine tall windows.
And inside it.
At the far end.
Was a fireplace.
So enormous.
That you could have parked a small pony in it.
And that great fireplace was cool.
And had been cold for as long as anyone living could remember.
For the simple reason that lysing it.
Had always been somebody else's job.
And in the old Mumbleton.
Somebody else.
Never turned up.
Mrs.
Honeywell had peered through those tall windows.
On her very first week.
But the huge swept hearth with nothing in it.
And set Hmm.
To herself.
In a way that meant something.
She did not put up a notice or form a committee.
She simply went about her hellos and tucked one small extra sentence in behind each of them.
Fitted to the person.
To Mr.
Cruddock,
She said,
That she was thinking of lighting the big fire.
In the meeting house on Friday evening.
And that she didn't suppose he knew.
Where a person might come by some good Dry logs.
To Mr.
Weatherby.
She said she'd heard that Big old chimneys had their tricks,
And was there a knack to that flue?
There was His grandfather had known it.
He was fairly sure it was a matter of warming the throat of the chimney first.
And he would come and see to it personally.
Mrs Bunting had benches.
Dorothy Quince at Buns Somebody will have to feed them all.
She said.
As though the whole thing had been her idea.
And bye then.
In a way.
It was everybody's.
Miss Feather emerged from the back room of the post office.
With a long string of red and white bunting.
Saved from some celebration so old that nobody could remember it.
And the town agreed that it was exactly right.
That the bunting should be brought by Miss Feather.
And the benches.
By the buntings.
And several people made that joke.
And it was a good joke every time.
Friday evening came down in sheets.
Proper range.
Silver in the lamplight.
Drumming on the square.
Racing in the gutters.
And through it.
From every direction came the whole of Mumbleton under its umbrellas.
I will die.
With logs and lanterns.
And buns.
And folding chairs.
While at home along the crooked streets.
Forty-one fires sat banked and quiet.
Under their ash.
Keeping warm for later.
Because their people had somewhere to be.
Mr.
Weatherby warmed the throat of the great chimney with a twist of burning paper,
Exactly as his grandfather had said.
Mr.
Craddock built the logs up criss-cross best chalked handwriting or no,
Revealing himself to be an artist in firewood.
And Mrs.
Murraygold Honeywell knelt down at the enormous hearth with a match.
And the kindling caught.
And the flames went up through Craddock's logs.
With a whomph and a crackle.
And a roar.
And the whole room went gold.
And the people of Mumbleton let out a cheer.
The first cheer the town had produced in living memory.
And it echoed round the tall windows.
And act into the rain.
Oh,
What an evening that was.
The great fire synapse.
Blaze.
And through everybody's shadows up the walls.
The copper kettle sang on the hearth.
There is toast.
Done on long forks.
And there were Dorothy Quince's buns.
And there was the discovery.
Which surprised nobody more than the Mumbletonians themselves.
That they liked each other.
Tom Bunting fell asleep at nine o'clock exactly,
Mid-bun,
Against his mother's side.
Alfie lay stretched out on the warm flagstones in front of the fender.
Touching gently.
After dream,
Rabbits.
The happiest dog in the wet north of the world.
And the rain lashed grandly at the tall dark windows.
Oh,
Evening lung.
And nobody minded at all.
Because the whole town was on the right side of the glass.
And the toes.
Eleven years of unsaid things.
Came out beside that fire.
All mixed up with the wood smoke.
Mr Weatherby told the story of his grandfather and the flu.
Twice.
And it was better the second time.
Miss Feather revealed that she had once,
Long ago,
Won a prize for singing.
And was persuaded.
It took three buns.
To prove it.
And her voice went up among the rafters.
No rust left in it anywhere,
While the rain kept the beat on the tall windowsill.
Dorothy Quince and Mr Craddock were discovered at half past nine,
Deep in conversation about pastry,
Of all things.
And we're still at it at ten.
And through it all.
Mrs Honeywell.
Rocked by the hearth and beams.
And said very little.
For the excellent reason that there was.
At last.
No need.
They light the big fire every Friday now.
In Mumbleton these days,
You cannot get from one end of Chimney Row to the other in under half an hour.
Because of all the hellos.
And the town has had to accept.
That this is simply the price Of living somewhere lovely And if you ever wonder how it was done The answer is this.
Hello.
Is the smallest word we have.
It takes less than a second to say.
It costs nothing whatsoever.
And it is a key that fits every door in the world.
Mrs.
Marigold Honeywell knew it all along.
The rest of Mumbleton knows it now.
And if you should ever pass through that town yourself.
On a rainy evening.
Which is the only kind of evening they keep.
You will not get ten steps up the street.
Before somebody says it to you first.
It is late in Mumbleton tonight.
And raining.
Softly.
And steadily.
The way it rains when the whole world is ready for bed.
And amazing house.
Degree.
Fire has burned down.
To a deep golden glow.
That breathes in and out among the embers.
Crackling away to itself.
The rain falls against the tall windows Tom sleeps against his mother.
Alfie sleeps by the fender.
Knows and pours.
Miss Feather and Dorothy.
And mystocratic.
And Mr.
Weatherby.
Are all talked about.
And nodding in the warmth.
And Mrs.
Murraygold Honeywell.
Rocks.
Very slowly.
In her rocking chair.
At the edge of the hearth.
Arise.
Close.
Her hands.
Hold it.
While the firelight sways over all the drowsy faces of her town.
And death.
And down.
The crooked streets outside.
Under the sun.
Dark rain.
41 banked fires.
Wait warm.
Under their ash for mourning.
