大象传媒

The R.A.F. lorry swayed and rocked through the darkening evening, as we made our way to yet another R.A.F. 5 Group bomber station. Inside, the mixed group of men and women of all ranks laughed and sang together. The wooden forms ranged along the lorry sides were slippery and uncomfortable, but at least we were not sitting on the floor.

It was a relaxed group of R.A.F. personnel of all ranks, who had come together at R.A.F. Waddington in order to act "Night Must Fall" by Emlyn Williams. The parts had been given out on the basis of acting ability and not of R.A.F. status. A Flight Sergeant played the male lead and a Flight Lieutenant set the stage and swept up.

First we had had to get approval from the Station Commander, then select and cast the plays and find scenery, props and costumes. Rehearsals could be very difficult, as people were needed on duty elsewhere. Costumes were a real problem to find. My delightful friend, Flight Officer Renata Campbell-Rogers, and I had been allowed to go to the film studios at Elstree to find clothes for another play, "Payment Deferred". We had been enthralled by the packed ranks of glamorous dresses, luxurious furs and see-through underwear. It was a big contrast with our daytime serge battledress outfit with buttoned-up shirt and tie, and hair off the collar.

Unfortunately, little glamour was required in this play. A wheelchair was needed and found. As I sat in the swaying lorry, I wondered if the stage would be flat or at an angle like the last station, where I had had to play all three acts holding onto the wheelchair to prevent it skidding forward into the audience.

In those dark, depressing wartime days, when war news was bad and food was scarce and boring, shows were encored to help try and lift morale and we were allowed to go round nearby R.A.F. stations with our plays to supplement the E.N.S.A. performances.

These were sad times for us, for our friends would be eating with us, laughing, going to dances in Lincoln, listening to music and sharing our lives, and four hours later they could be blown to tiny pieces high in the sky. The personnel on the station always went out to the airfield to wave the waiting queues of Lancaster bombers into the air. It was a more subdued group who stood in the dark of the middle of the night, counting the planes back and realising that A for Apple and F for Freddy were not there. There could be as many as nine missing in one night, which meant 63 men were not there at breakfast. The toll of able, fit, unselfish young men, from all over the world was very high. It has never been acknowledged by an ungrateful country, swayed by lurid reports of enemy civilian casualties, regardless of our own sufferings inflicted by those enemies.

We were a bonded group, brought together by a mutual love of theatre, giving pleasure to others, going to bed at 3.00 a.m. and rising at 7.00 a.m. to do a day鈥檚 work. If we had the special response of the audience responding to us, the electricity of emotion rising to us on stage, that was what gave us added pleasure.

Sheilah Cruickshank via Dundee Central Library

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