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A new play by local playwright Suzanne
Hawkes to be performed at various local venues Spring 2010
An Island of Secrets – rumours of a Death Ray – strange
towers rising above the Manor - flashing lights in the
dead of night and the ever present threat of invasion.
Will life for the villagers of Orford and Bawdsey ever be
the same again? And will the boffins come up with a
workable plan before the Luftwaffe start their bombing
raids in earnest?
After the ‘War to end all Wars’ there was no stomach among
politicians in Britain to contemplate another conflict.
But by the middle years of the 1930s it was obvious to
some that there would be no choice. What was also obvious
was that this next war would be won or lost in the air –
and Britain was very unprepared.
For those who recognised the threat one question seemed to
have priority – what will stop the bomber getting through?
The answer lay with a small group of boffins on a
windswept spit of land on a desolate stretch of the East
Coast who against the odds, with minimal resources, Heath
Robinson prototypes and with time running out worked in
secret to perform a miracle and develop the ultimate in
defence technology – the system that would become known as
RADAR.
This is their story – and the story of the ordinary men
and women who worked alongside them both on Orfordness and
at Bawdsey Manor in the years leading up to the pivotal
battle of the skies in 1940 - the battle that would
determine whether Britain would stand or fall to the
German might.
This is a fictional drama based on fact. Using documented
records of the boffins and the oral and written records of
those who worked with them as assistants and radar
operators, ferrymen and security guards, this play will
dramatise the events leading up to the Battle of Britain
as seen through their eyes, and the struggle to develop a
working defence chain of radar stations before the threat
of German invasion became reality.
Suzanne has written a number of successful plays about
local issues including Refugee Café, Breaking the Chain,
Becoming Orwell and Suffragette! which have been performed
in venues including Sir John Mills Theatre and the New
Wolsey Studio. |
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