‘…NOT A BED OF ROSES’

An arts development officer in the Trade Union Movement

Clare Higney
1985

£1.50 + p&p, 56 pp
B/w illus
ISBN 978 0 903319 33 1
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In 1982 Rick Gwilt, a lorry driver turned writer and publisher, was invited by the Lancashire Association of Trades Councils (LATC) to become the first ever Arts Development Officer in the Trade Union Movement. Whilst the Movement, in its long history, had harboured rank and file amateur groups, commissioned workplace arts projects, promoted professional theatre companies, supported special projects such as Centre 42 and initiated exhibitions and a number of publications, it had never employed its own cultural catalyst. Lancashire’s was a unique post and, many felt, a unique opportunity. It was expected that the work of the LATC Arts Development Officer would become an imaginative feature, perhaps even model, of a sustained partnership between the arts and the Movement.
This report was commissioned by the Gulbenkian Foundation to provide a document and assessment of the Arts development Officer initiative by the LATC 1982–85, which was funded by the Foundation for three years. The report is drawn from interviews and from reading background material – letters, reports and minutes.

Clare Higney has worked in professional theatre as a stage-manager and director and became the first Director of Salisbury’s Arts Centre. In 1978 she became Projects Co-ordinator for Northampton Development Corporation’s Arts Development Section, taking up the post of Arts Development Officer in 1979. In 1982, she went freelance, working both as an arts consultant and community artist, and is resident in Scotland researching and developing needlework banner-making, while still undertaking specific pieces of arts research.

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