Waterways show tour to visit the Black Country
A touring theatre company will be bringing the stories on women who took on the challenging job of operating pairs of canal boats during the Second World War to life during a series of new shows.
They took to the waterways when there was a shortage of crews and were responsible for many different delivery routes around the region.
Alarum Theatre Company Idle Women of the Wartime Waterways will shine the spotlight on their experiences
The show is a double bill, featuring poems and songs by Heather Wastie, and a solo play by Kate Saffin, and has been created using first hand accounts, diaries, archive material and audio interviews.
During April and May they will be following, by boat, the route worked by a Worcestershire woman, Daphne March, who carried flour on her family-owned boat Heather Bell from Worcester to Tipton, and coal from Cannock to Worcester, throughout the war.
Former Worcestershire Poet Laureate Heather, who lives in Cookley near Kidderminster but was born in the Black Country, has been touring her own poetry and songs with Alarum Theatre since April 2016.
“The women whose stories we tell don’t get the recognition they deserve. Most people have never heard of them. They didn’t have a proper name; they were just
called ‘trainees’, even after they’d passed their training. The nickname ‘Idle Women’ came after the war, and my half of the show explains where that came from. By quoting from first-hand accounts of the trainees themselves, we bring to life what the women went through when they left behind their ordinary middle class lives in favour of long hours, hard labour and having to spend a lot of time in close proximity to other women in very cramped and challenging conditions.
“Kate and I met by chance on Twitter. Kate lives on a narrow boat and I live in a house very close to the Staffs & Worcs Canal. My family had a boat from when I was very young, so you could say that canals are in my DNA," said Heather.
Performances will take place on April 27 at Tipton Community Hub, on April 28 at Titford Pumphouse in Oldbury and on May 1 at Wood Lane Community Centre in West Bromwich.
There will also be shows on May 2 at The Boathouse in Rushall, on May 4 at Longwood Boat Club in Walsall, on May 8 at The Fingerpost in Pelsall, on May 9 at Yates Sport and Social Club in Pelsall and on May 12 on Calf Heath Marina , Wolverhampton.
For the full tour details see alarumtheatre.co.uk and to book tickets visit www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/alarum-theatre-9882552992
