Storyhouse Live Childless

Michael and Berenice were honoured to be part of this event which took place on 10th September in Chester at the Storyhouse Theatre.

We were on at 3pm BST - that's almost midnight with Michael (he is very committed). There was a moment when we were playing ‘guest spot’ from our view of the audience from our Zoom screens and uncertain if we were on the Big Screen nattering away about life!

Andy Harrod chaired the session and we had a ten minutes to share our stories alongside Hanar Amner, the Creative Priest who talked about her faith, body perception and being childless. Robbie Curran picked up the theme of love in his talk about choosing to be childfree. It was a pleasure to ‘online’ meet them and congratulations to them both on their recent and up coming marriages respectively.

We shared our stories, and love came into that. The Full Stop is a significant part of our lives and whilst we don't know what the future brings, we know our time together and with our audience is powerful. Our connection as a group of three and love for each other with support this brings is a huge part of our story. The equality as a team which makes us unique and how we’re striving to be diverse and inclusive in our approach. And the love for our listeners who inspire us with our guests who never fail to amaze us.

I (Berenice) was on Twitter throughout and very quickly began to see the powerful unity that this amazing event was creating. The past few days have thrown many people as we mull over grief, unravelling those complicated feelings and any gathering in our childless space - be that online or in person - is both joyous and emotive in deep ways. It was heartening to see people connecting with others from our small screen and online too. Bad timing on my part with holiday, difficult anniversaries and life meant I wasn’t able to be in Chester but we are determined to be there in 2023 in person and hope you will be too.

Much thanks to Nicola, Dawn and all the team for inviting us and creating a day that will mean so much to so many.

You may also like to read about grief and community written just before we went live for Storyhouse.

Check out Andy’s Twitter feed on the event here.

And if you’d like to be a guest, please get in touch with us we’d love to hear from you.

Berenice and Michael, with Sarah