Two women sit on one of the water drop shaped metal benches in Thurmaston made by sculptor Richard Thornton with a haiku fragment written during the Charnwood Arts project The Sound Of Water workshops that I led with massive support from Jemma Bagley. The words we decided upon are laser cut into the bench, in fact they are cut out of the bench.

The words that these young Muslim women sit on are ‘trees spreading their arms’. I’d like to feel that our communities across Charnwood are like these trees, spreading their arms to welcome new members into them, wherever they are from.

Paul Conneally
April 2015