Colin Mitchel, Poet, Makes Blueberry Scones
Our special guest for this Beyond the Tearoom episode is Colin Mitchell, poet, gardener and woodworking extraordinaire. Colin is the first of our guests who actually visited the legendary Mother Murphy’s Tearoom, so it was extra special for me today to be able to reminisce about The Tearoom on the Hill.
With a guest from Cornwall, it will come as no surprise that I chose to bake scones with Colin, served with Cornish clotted cream, of course.
Can Colin now add scone-making to his list of hidden talents? You'll have to watch the videos to find out.
Link to Episode 13, Colin Mitchell Makes Blueberry Scones
In my first book, The Magical Tearoom on the Hill, Colin appears in one in one chapter, and here’s a little snippet from it:
One of the marvellous things about the tearoom was that we never knew who would step through the door. In May 2019, the week before our Britain at War Afternoon Tea event, into the tearoom strolled Colin and his lovely wife, Chris. As Colin left a few hours later (it was that sort of tearoom), he mentioned he was a poet with some war-themed poems we could read at our event. I thanked him but didn’t expect him to remember our little tearoom once he’d left us. However, after checking my emails that night, I saw that Colin had indeed emailed a whole host of his poems for me to choose from. The most difficult part was selecting just a couple of them - they were all so poignant and moving that I’d have liked to have used them all.
Colin’s poems were so well received by our customers that we asked him to run a poetry evening for us at the tearoom. What a fabulous evening it was. Colin had written a poem about Mother Murphy’s that made me swell with pride (there may have been a little tear, too). He also recited some poems from his new book, Of Sadness And Of Joy, some sad, some moving and some humorous. He also did a little workshop, getting everyone to say a few words about the tearoom and why they came to us. One customer attending that night was a tearoom regular, Anne, a lecturer at the local college. During the workshop, Anne commented, “Don’t come to the tearoom to sit in a corner and read your book because it just won’t happen! I tried it once. I still bring my book, but it never gets opened!” At the end of the evening, Colin took away all the suggestions and, a few weeks later, sent me a fabulous new poem about the tearoom. It was made all the more special, of course, because some of our wonderful customers helped write it.
You can find more about Colin and his poetry at https//www.cmpoetry.com
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