Lost wartime play and playwright rediscovered

A wartime play written and first performed soon after World War Two has recently been rediscovered in south Devon.

Red Earth tells the story of the 1943 evacuation of the South Hams.

Villages, farms and homes across an area of 30,000 acres were evacuated to make way for the arrival of American troops ahead of D-Day on 6 June 1944.

It was recreated as a radio play for the BBC by a local acting group.

The rediscovery of the original typewritten script in a local archive has revealed a prolific female playwright who was inspired by a true, but secret, wartime event.

In November 1943, 3,000 local people were moved out of their homes to enable Allied training to take place on and around the beach at Slapton.

The area was chosen for exercises as its topography resembled Utah beach, where US troops were to land on D-Day.

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The play Red Earth captured the story of the residents who were given six weeks to move.

The script was rediscovered by Steph Bradley from the South Brent Storytellers and Archive.

She said: "You really get a sense of the history – that civilian evacuation - and how it affected individual families."

The writer was Christian Michell, known as Kitty, a teacher who witnessed the impact of the war on her community in Loddiswell.

Newspaper interviews from the time suggest she met one of the local evacuees at the village train station, learned more about her experiences of the evacuation, and was inspired to write the play during or immediately after World War Two.

Ms Bradley said: "In discovering this play, there has been something almost magical about how the pieces of Miss Michell’s story and the play have come to light.

"It’s very special."

The delicate, typewritten script was kept by local historian Christine Scott for nearly 80 years before she donated it to the archive.

Red Earth is written in Devonshire dialect and focuses on the Hockley family at Merrifield Farm and the surrounding farming community.

Research suggests the play was last performed in Kingsbridge Town Hall in July 1946.

Local actors from the Kingsbridge Amateur Theatrical Society have now recreated it as a radio play for BBC Radio Devon and helped to make a series about the play’s rediscovery.

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