Having visited the museum for a second time, on a trip with just Miriam, Barney and myself, we were very encouraged and eager to progress with the project.
We visited Stewton House, a retirement home, along with Ruth and another representative from the museum, who were doing a presentation with the residents on WW2. There were a number of props such as gas masks, shell cases and helmets which were used to evoke memories from those who remembered those days and we were able to assist the museum staff by chatting to some residents after the presentation and recording their memories using audio recorders.
We also took this opportunity to speak to the residents about the history of Louth, and although none of them were around at the time, we also asked them about the Louth Flood, in case any had stories to share told to them by their parents or other relatives. We had limited success in this regard, as many of the residents weren’t originally from Louth and others weren’t sure of the details of the event. There were certainly some characters in the Home, one lady in particular was piping up throughout the WW2 presentation, offering her two pence worth and even challenging historical fact on a number of occasions!
Although not tremendously useful for the Project at hand, it was a great experience for us all and we enjoyed chatting with the residents, many of whom could have happily stayed chatting for hours! It was also a privilege to help out the museum staff who would have struggled to record high quality recordings of the residents’ memories.
After the trip to Stewton House, we stopped by the Playgoers Theatre, which we were surprised by in terms of its size and modernity! I, personally, was expecting some ancient, tiny run-down theatre but it was nothing like I expected. Unfortunately, the people we were hoping to meet were not around, and we had forgotten their names to ask the receptionist about them! Fortunately, Louth is a small place and the receptionist knew exactly who we were looking for and was able to provide a contact number. We then progressed back to the Museum where we were given privileged access to their extensive digital database and we proceeded to trawl through heaps of information, alternation different algorithms to trace certain individuals who were key characters in the Flood story. We had some great results, however we were well and truly stumped when attempting to track down a certain Captain C. E. Losely who appeared to be a total ghost, with zero information on him! Ruth then assisted with searching for him through other means and a few days later we got an email from her with information about the fellow who we believe is the same man, however with the name Captain C. E. Loseby. There must have been a typo somewhere along the process.
We also got to meet David Robinson again who was helpful in terms of what we were seeking to do and he also provided a contact number for Richard (?) Gurnish, one author of a book we had been using for research. He also fetched the book used in the display of Sir John Bolle and his Spanish Lady so that we could look through and take photographs, thus documenting the text which would form the narrative for our dramatisation of the story.
We had another brief look at the Flood display and tried to find any details we may have missed in our research and also attempted to work out the logistics of how the audio display would work, in terms of its mode of address.
Since this trip we have progressed further in research, Miriam has drafted a rough script for the Flood narrative and I have contacted the Playgoers to organise a meeting and hopefully be able to cast some characters and have also contacted Graham Turner, a terrific gent whom I cast in my last radio drama, who I feel would act out Sir John Bolle terrifically. He could also be cast in other parts of the project, where necessary. We hope to record his part in the Sir John Bolle story on Sunday 17th March but meanwhile we are still waiting to cast the Spanish Lady. They are seemingly in short supply in Lincoln but I have placed an advert in StarNow and am just waiting for the responses.
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