June 2024
Nick Goldsmith is the founder of The Bank of Dreams and Nightmares, the Bridport charity that encourages children to explore their creativity through writing.
We met Nick at his office in the LSi to discover more about the exciting work of ‘The Bank’, and what led him to set it up in the first place…
The Bridge: Nick, we absolutely love what you do! Anything that gets kids writing has got to be a good thing. Where did the idea for The Bank come from?
Nick Goldsmith: Around 2016 I stumbled upon a charity in San Francisco called 826 Valencia, set up by the author Dave Eggers. It’s a writing and tutoring centre for young people, and it happens to be disguised as a pirate supplies shop to meet local business zoning laws. It’s been a huge success – partly because so many people come in, intrigued by the pirate stuff – and has inspired similar groups around the world, including The Ministry of Stories in London. It planted the seed in me for The Bank.
TB: So what happened next?
NG: Around that time, my wife and I decided to move our family to Bridport. I was born and brought up in London but once we’d had kids I knew London life wasn’t ideal. My wife is from Uploders so we knew the area, and Bridport turned out to be exactly what I wanted. I immediately felt culturally connected without the stresses of London.
I was producing films and making music videos and TV commercials, and I continued doing that for a while. Then the pandemic arrived, which turned out to be the catalyst for the birth of The Bank. Having to home-school in the first lockdown meant we had to find ways to keep our two boys engaged. In the second lockdown, though, the school was sending more work and we found the kids were less engaged. Then my mother died and left me some money, which meant I could launch The Bank and not take a salary for a year while I looked for funding.
TB: How are things going now?
NG: We’re three years in and I work full time at The Bank, which is the only way to achieve what we want. My previous job was all-encompassing, I couldn’t do both. Year one felt exciting; now I feel the responsibility, although I still find our work incredibly inspiring. I wouldn’t change anything.
TB: Tell us what The Bank has to offer local kids…
NG: Our regular activities go on both in school and out of school. There are standalone morning workshops for primary schools on themes like storymaking and speech writing, or we can tailor a session to whatever the school wants. We run longer courses, up to 10 weeks, for secondary age students so they can produce a more substantial piece of work, either fiction or non-fiction. Our specialist workshop leaders and volunteer helpers offer great one-to-one support to the kids and the interactive sessions can be transformative.
Our out-of-school offer includes The Vault, an after-school club for young writers aged 10 to 14. They produce What’s Going On?, a quarterly paper full of news, interviews and features. There’s also The Writers’ Account, a place to write, and learn about writing, for 15- to 18-year-olds. And we’ll be running a club during the summer holidays, when 9- to 14-year-olds will get to plan their vision for The Children’s Democratic Republic of Bridport! All this out-of-school stuff is free for children.
TB: Has there been a highlight in The Bank’s first three years?
NG: For me it’s definitely Resonate, the kids’ project with Joelle Taylor last autumn. She’s an extraordinary poet who led a group of young writers in workshops over two weekends. They produced some amazing work – stories, poems and songs – and performed it with Joelle at the Arts Centre during the Bridport Literary Festival. The kids were brave and inspiring as well as being incredible performers.
I want what we do to be as little like school as possible, and having the kids work with professional writers helps us achieve that. If you give young people a voice and a platform, they’ll impress you.
TB: And we hear you ran a workshop at No 10 Downing Street!
NG: Yes we did. It was part of ‘Lessons at 10’, a program set up by Akshata Murty, Rishi Sunak’s wife, in September. It involved young writers from three schools – they thought about the jobs that a prime minister might have to do that no one ever hears about, and then wrote ‘life hacks’ to make those tasks just a little bit easier. It was quite bizarre to be there, but it was nice to be asked.
TB: What have you got planned for this year?
NG: We’re putting together a three-day literary festival in October called Bankfest with students from Colfox, Beaminster and Budmouth (in Weymouth) schools. There will be interactive workshops with all kinds of writers, and the kids will be writing poetry, stories, plays – whatever fires their imagination. It’s very exciting!
TB: Are young people getting involved behind the scenes too?
NG: We definitely need to be steered by the young people we’re working with, and we have a youth advisory board who are involved with planning. I hope that in time some of them will want to join the main board of trustees and eventually run the charity.
TB: How can adults get involved?
NG: We couldn’t do any of this without our volunteers and we’re always looking for more. We aim to have one adult to four children at workshops. The kids want support, and when they realise the person with them is there because they want to be, the kids feel respected and worthy.
It’s good if volunteers don’t have experience as writers; I’ve found that when we don’t tell young people ‘how to do it’, they blow us away with what they produce. We don’t ask too much of our volunteers and you can dip in and out; you just need a DBS check and a training session.
www.thebankofdreamsand nightmares.org