Back in the Day

My Year 10 GCSE Drama group recently completed a unique and extremely gratifying project involving senior residents from our local community. Last year’s Year 10 performed a show about infection and disease in the local hospital to trainee medical staff. This year we have focused on the memories of six local individuals, particularly the time in and after World War II.
We began by interviewing our guests about such topics as Evacuation, Rationing, life during the Blitz, and the Post-War period.

We then took these memories as the beginning point for devising a ‘documentary’ style drama which combined the facts of certain historical incidents 1939-55 with the personal memories of our guests. As the cast will no doubt tell you, this was been a great challenge, not only because there are 19 of them to allocate roles to, but deciding what to include, while remaining factually accurate and entertaining, proved extremely tricky!!

We would like to thank local residents Roy, Irene, Audrey, Harry, Arthur and Liz for giving up their time for us. Without them, there would have been no show. Also, without the efforts of expert Dr Meena Khatwa, Camilla Harney, Sylvia Farrow, Sarah Wharton from Year 11 and my fellow colleagues in the Drama department, we would never have got the show off the ground.

Finally, the students themselves, who worked through some long and very heated (!) after-school rehearsals. As our guest Liz Poulter said:
“I think this project worked very well indeed and I think the students really got inside the hearts of the people they were portraying…I found the production very emotional... It is a very odd feeling to be whisked back in time and to relive part of your life. This is exactly what happened – not only with the portrayal of my life, but those of other people who experienced similar things or lived in the same area. We all thoroughly enjoyed the experience… We cannot say how much we enjoy working with the students and being able to pass on the things we have learnt over the years. I am sure that it has made these students think and hopefully guide them in the future.”

Very well done. I am very proud of you all.
Mr Eden