Out & About September 2017

OA feature

of the common: people who lived or worked there.” Along the way she learned some surprising things. “I knew about the peace protests of course, but I knew less about the use of the base during the Second World War – how crucial Greenham and this area in general was in preparations for D-Day. The thought of all those planes taking off in 1944 and then so few returning haunts me even now. “I was also fascinated to hear about the Ugandan Asian refugees who came to Greenham in the 1970s; I met with one woman who came over when her family was expelled from Uganda and her story was incredible.” And surprisingly a valuable source emerged close to home – Beth’s grandmother – “an incredible, indomitable woman” who lived in Cold Ash until she sadly died a few months ago at the grand old age of 101. “About a year ago I was sitting on her sofa drinking tea and talking about the Greenham project when she suddenly had a burst of memory and started talking about how she used to go to dances on the RAF base during the Second World War. “I named the main characters, Peggy and Frank, after her and my grandfather. For me they both encapsulated a spirit of proud, British make-do-and-mend practicality. They had experienced war first-hand and knew how terrible it is to be hungry or experience trauma. She would watch the news and say ‘I don’t hold with war’.” The difficulty came in encapsulating all she learnt into a cohesive dramatic story. “There are an infinite number of ways to tell any story and it all comes down to making choices: who gets a voice, whose viewpoint do we see? “Sometimes a historical retelling can seem impersonal – we can care more about one person than about thousands. So I decided to channel the whole story through the eyes of 

A seven-year stint in the outreach department at Bagnor’s Watermill theatre followed, before some 18 months ago she took the plunge and became a freelance playwright and theatre director, which proved a smart move as she has achieved considerable success. “I’ve been writing plays to commission ever since – I’m lucky enough to be very busy and am hoping it will stay that way. My first published play, The Glove Thief , will be coming out in the autumn.” Like those of us who have lived here most of our lives, Beth has personal experience of Newbury’s role in the Cold War era and of the business park that the base became. She was a young girl when she remembers driving past the women’s peace camp in the 80s: “As children it was just accepted as a part of life.” Then later “My first properly grown-up temp job, as a student on vacation, was on the business park, putting labels onto jam jars at English Provender. I also once had a job during a gap in acting work where my sole task was to delete the spam emails coming into the computers of a publishing company there. I rather enjoyed that one, though I can’t imagine I was really worth paying. “After drama school, I founded a small theatre company to make touring work on the fringe, and we were based in the Open Studios office at New Greenham Arts for a while. I rehearsed plays in the studios and have gone running on the common in the summer – it’s generally been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.” But still she needed to do further research to feed into her writing. “I’ve spent a lot of time in libraries researching books, something I love doing because I’m very geeky. I had to read up about a lot of history, covering about 60 years, and then discard most of it. I also met with a few people who had very specific memories

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