patron stories

Eileen Essell

Posted on 21 October
Hollywood actress, Eileen Essell has been an active Patron of Create since 2007, lending her support to projects including ArtsExtravaganza, art:space and changing:spaces.

Born in Ireland, Eileen first became an actress when she left university. After working on stage continuously for 12 years, she married a playwright and decided to earn a living that would allow her to stay in one place. She became a teacher and taught Drama in Education for 30 years at comprehensive schools in London.

Eileen-Essell

After her husband’s death in 1998, a family friend persuaded Eileen to appear in a play that he was putting on, where she was spotted by an agent. Soon afterwards, aged 76, she started appearing in television programmes including Doctors, Holby City and The Canterbury Tales and has not stopped working since. A part in the film Finding Neverland propelled her to Hollywood fame in her 80s, and further roles followed in The Producers and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

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Erwin James

Posted on 13 October
Writer Erwin James has been a Create Patron since July 2007, lending support to projects including Inside Stories and Speak With My Voice.

Born in Somerset, Erwin was brought up in circumstances both “brutal and rootless”, leading to his first criminal conviction aged ten. His teenage and early adult years were spent drifting and often sleeping rough. Despite working in various labouring jobs, he committed petty, mostly acquisitive, but occasionally violent crimes until he was jailed for life in 1984.

Erwin James

Whilst in prison, Erwin was guided into education by the resident psychologist and quickly became known as a man who had a way with words. In 2000, he started writing a regular column for The Guardian called A Life Inside, which gave him a bridge to the outside world.

He was released from prison in August 2004, having served 20 years to the day, and now works as a full time writer. When we invited him to become a Patron of Create, he researched the charity before agreeing:

“I saw that I wanted to support a cause that championed the transformative power of the arts in places where there was little chance for creativity.”

To date, Erwin has been involved in several of our projects in Rochester and Cookham Wood Prisons and Speak With My Voice at Deptford Reach, a day centre for adults suffering through homelessness. He says that attending these projects has been a truly humbling experience, particularly because of his first-hand experience of the participants’ circumstances. Watching them create music, poems and works of art kindles hope.

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Esther Freud

Posted on 05 October

Esther Freud

“I always loved telling stories, and thought at first I would make my living through acting, but almost as soon as I left drama school I began writing, and soon found that it was more satisfying to make up my own characters than wait for someone to offer one up for me to inhabit. For my first novel I drew on my experiences of living in Morocco as a young child in the 60’s, and it was exciting when that book, Hideous Kinky, was published and then made into a film starring Kate Winslet.

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