Directed by Anna Niland & Written by Philip Osment

We spent the first week getting to know each other, playing games, exploring the idea of Identity-what do we want from our lives? -  Sean said, “I want to change.” After going out on visits to The Dock museum, I was struck by the reference to the first person killed in the Blitz being a 7 year old boy. That afternoon we told the story of Barrow through tableaux. We then went to Swarthmoor Hall on the coach to hear about how the founder of the Quaker movement found converts with the family there. We also visited the Laurel and Hardy museum and most importantly the Abbey where our guide, Ian, gave us a sense of the history of the place.  We played hide and seek and created images using the spaces. 

 

Anna and I found the Abbey inspiring but almost overwhelming.  Anna had an image of sheets hanging on washing day.  How to combine the heritage stories, with the identity issues and to fully utilise this amazing ruin?  Although….I was buttonholed by a lady complaining about all these young people climbing over the precious stones!
 
We felt at the end of that first week that the local young people and the peer mentors were working incredibly well together – they already felt like a company – very enthusiastic and committed.

 

During the second week Kane was leading great yoga-based warm-ups; we explored the idea of hiding – what do we hide about our Identity?  We began to talk about ghosts who haunt the ruins – French monks, the Blitz boy, witches, cocklepickers who died at Morecombe bay.  We painted self portraits using the outlines of our bodies and heard the Miriam was interested in coming up and leading a session exploring Identity through painting.  We had watched the film about the cocklepickers and the company wrote a song telling their story. The weather allowed us to make more visits to the Abbey and try out some of our ideas there – Tasha screamed very convincingly as a girl accused of witchcraft.

 

Every night Judy, Anna, Laura and I were returning to our static caravans out beyond Ulverston to play poker and chew the fat!

 

I spent that following weekend wondering how it could all be brought together and shared my doubts about the Pendle witches (who weren’t really that local) with Anna when she returned from her visit to London.  We went in on Monday morning with a clearer idea of the show.  Sean would be a troubled young man who climbs into the Abbey to get drunk on cider and maybe to overdose, there he meets the ghost of the Blitz boy who introduces him to the French monks, tells him the story of iron ore, the railways and the bombing of the Barrow shipyards where he himself dies. Tasha could play his mother and scream when the body is discovered.

 

Hannnah, Fraser, Sean and I went and improvised Sean’s relationship with his Nana and his meeting with the Blitz boy.  Anna and Miriam did wonderful things with sheets to create wartime Barrow and with silks to create the ocean under which the cocklepickers sank to their deaths.

 

THE WEATHER was glorious so that on a beautiful late summer afternoon we welcomed in our first audience and then again on a cool night we gave a second atmospheric performance, with the writer frantically grabbing torches to shine on the bits he wanted illuminating more fully!

 

Then it was all over and we felt somehow bereft because it had been such an intense but life-enhancing experience.  It was great to see the friendships that had been forged and good to know that a re-union was planned.