In January 2023 I visited Carvansons, based in Lancashire. They produce and manufacture perfume for companies across the UK, in Europe and throughout the Far East. The Carvansons Headquarters is part science laboratory and part high tech factory. I met with Luke Whowell Director at Carvansons and the Head of Marketing, Vicki Last. Carvansons were keen to support the project and to provide technical advice.
We discussed the idea of producing a kit with a bespoke range of scents from Carvansons for the Learners at the HMP’s and the Novus teams. These new scents would be inspired by some of the reoccuring narratives from previous workshops – cut grass, wood and bubblegum. I thought these direct scents may resonate with Learners.
I went back to HMP Buckley Hall in April 2023 and introduced these new Carvansons fragrances to a new group of learners. HMP Buckley Hall is a category B and C Prison. The HMP Buckley Hall Learners are normally a couple of years into a long sentence.
“ Reminded me of the resin I used as a kid playing the violin. That was over 30 years ago.”
“ A football changing room when I was younger and used to play for a local team.”
In the summer of 2023 I began a collaboration with Novus teams from the North East, they included staff from HMP Northumberland, HMP Durham, HMP Holme House, HMP Kirklevington, and HMP Deerbolt. Sarah Hartley along with North East Regional Managers Sonia Sultman and Bev Hughf helped facilitate the session. We discussed how this project could be deloyed across a number of HMP sites in the North East. This also offered an opportunity to draw on the counselling, dyslexia expertise and teaching methodologies of the Novus Education teams. Reviewing the handouts, one suggestion was to remove standard graphic devices such as lines and graphs that indicate where text should be written. I was informed that these academic formal structures can be very off putting and a barrier for many dyslexic and non typical Learners.
I provided learning and perfume fragrance packs. In addition to the scent, the handouts included a large poster info graphic, worksheets and examples from classic literature that reference perfumes in their stories, such as works by Raymond Chandler and Fyodor Sologub.
I also tried out some of the Carvansons scents with Learners at HMP Risley. This group were on the Sexual Offenders Training Programme. More than two in five (43%) men in prison aged 50 or over have been convicted of sex offences. (The Prison Reform Trust 2023 )
The was a question around how would the project run when it is delivered on site by the Novus Teams ? Initial feedback looked promising. The project proved to be a good fit for those groups studying English.
“Enshrined in the box was a sealed envelope, en-grained with the faint scent of Cuir de Ruisse lingering in the air like she was standing next to me in her bold stature. Intrigued to open the letter, there it was in bold the reason behind the scent that she wore. I was touched by the reason behind the scent and could feel the tears running down my cheeks. Upon reading each page, I could peel every layer of the mask behind my Grandma’s boldness and see the softer side.”
“A world so far apart to the world I have been used to. I was remembering the times when I was so homesick and all I wanted to do was spend time with my mum cooking and reading together.”
In December 2023 I was invited to return to take part in a bespoke Learning session at HMP Holme House in Stockton-On-Tees with Victoria Last and Anthony Wilcock from Carvansons. The Carvansons team gave a presentation which they normally ran with their clients at Perfume Seminars across the Middle East. This workshop was a mix of Learners from the Maths and English classes. It was an investigation of the three primary fragrances that make up the uinique smell of the popular fizzy drink, Coca Cola.
The event was organised by Beverly Hughf, the Educational Manager at HMP Holme House. The Education Staff from Novus had been running Perfume Stories for a few months. We were treated to a specially designed ‘Perfume Stories’ menu, which featured special dishes remade by learners based on their own olfactory history. It included ‘Banksy’s Nan’s Chicken Broth’. The food and the service in the Learner ran restaurant was excellent.
Perfume Stories had been integrated across the curriculum at HMP Holme House. The work included maths and infographics that explained how the learners responded to the scents. The postives and the negatives. Social Enterprise Staff worked with learners on a range of scented Christmas cards. IT Learners produced digital artwork that framed quotes from the Perfume Stories Workshops. At the end of the session, the Learners had to work out which ones they were.
I returned to Carvansons to review a range food based scents that have been designed specifically for these Workshops. This was based on feedback from the Education Teams and learners in the North East. This new range of scents included strawberry cakes, tomatoes, greenhouses, pizza dough and baked bread.
Perfume Stories, Workshop 2 is scheduled for July 2024.