In 2004 we established "Tales From the Heartwood" a small arts company which offers multicultural performance storytelling withpuppets, arts and crafts workshops and courses for all ages. Drawing on our vast life experience with people of all ages, conditions, walks of life, we are extremely skilled at working with hard to reach groups and much of our work has been in ex-mining communities of extreme deprivation, in the areas of family learning, adults with special needs, hospices, libraries, travellers, refugees and asylum seekers, older people and extensive work in schools.