Local playwright
Michael Stevens explains more about his latest work,
We'll Keep a Welcome, based on the memories of Merseyside evacuees sent to live in North Wales during WWII.
We'll Keep a Welcome
Tramdriver Jack and his pregnant wife Elsie Wright live in a mid-terrace house in Liverpool, writes Michael Stevens. They live there with their three children Stan, 12, Jim, 10 and Jean, eight, and Elsie's mum, Annie.
It is Friday August 25th 1939, bath night, and with children in bed we learn from Elsie that before long they will have to be evacuated from the city, though at this stage no one knows where.
We follow the journey of the three children to a village in North Wales, where Stan and Jim are looked after on a farm, and Jean by a shopkeeper and her family. The play then sees how they progress through the six years of the war, their separation from home, how they cope with rural life and the Welsh language, and fit in with their new 'families', who have their own adjustments to make as the war rolls on relentlessly.
Then there is 17-year-old Ruth from Wallasey, who finds herself in the wrong place when war breaks out, 19-year-old Dafydd Jones, longing to join the RAF and exchange the drudgery of labouring on the farm for a life of adventure, while Alun Hughes, in his late 70s, and Annie in Liverpool have memories of experiences in earlier wars that foreshadow pain and suffering to come.
There is another storyline too, that of notorious fascists William and Margaret Joyce. As war threatens, their journey from home also takes them to another country: Germany. Here William gets a job on the radio and becomes the infamous Lord Haw-Haw, broadcasting propaganda to Britain from beyond enemy lines, before the progress of the war threatens his livelihood and eventually his life.
The play ends as the war ends. Going home is now the theme, though not everyone can or does go home. And going home is not the same as going back - life as it was has changed irrevocably for everyone.
Behind-the-scenes
Forming a company to take the production forwards has involved a great mix of young and old, amateur and professional, old hands and first-timers.
Age Concern North East Wales commissioned Michael Stevens to write the script after he gathered people's memories for a reminisence project for the charity in 2007.
Michael has written other plays for the stage, several with a local interest: Gresford, the dramatization of the 1934 pit disaster; Shotton, documenting the steelstrike and subsequent closure of steel-making; By the Waters of Denbigh, chronicling the 19th century cholera epidemic in the town; The Empire Changes Hands, a comment on the accession of Queen Elizabeth to the throne, as transposed to a dance hall in Flint; and The Mold Riots, reliving the events in the town when soldiers opened fire on protesting miners.
Robert Fox, Head of Drama at St Richard Gwyn High School, Flint, directs the play as he has many of the others above, and his pupils play evacuees. Others come from Theatr yr Ifanc, at the Stiwt, Rhos, whose director Chris Dukes has been recruited as production manager.
Other input has come from Mike Jones, stage designer, who works at Clwyd Theatr Cymru, Mold; Philip Main, costume designer; and Danny Latham, actor, who takes on the role of William Joyce.
The play was commissioned as part of Wrexham Arts Festival 2008.
Share your memories
We'd like to hear your memories of WWII, particularly to do with being an evacuee in North Wales or if you were a member of one of the host families. Log in to Memoryshare to start sharing your memories like Oldboots who tells how his family was moved to Coedpoeth from London after the bombs started to fall:
"During April and May of 1944, the Germans started to send over the V1 pilotless bomb which flew on a pre-determined course in the general direction of the London area and the Home Counties. I remember the very first night they came, we were in our air raid shelter and my dad was keeping watch outside. He called us to see an 'enemy aircraft' on fire, supposing we had hit it with 'ack ack' fire. What we were witnessing was a V1 with its tail engine flaming exhaust, and it was not until the engine cut out that the real danger began. That was when the bomb began to fall to earth and would explode haphazardly wherever it landed. My mother asked me and my brother Billy, if we would like to be evacuated away from this part of the country and be sent somewhere where we would be out of range of these new weapons of war..."
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