Writer and actor Neil Walker describes the background to Do We Do The Right Thing? a play coming soon to The Old Fire Station

Simply put, if it hadn’t been for those deaths I would never have gone to Royal Wotton Bassett. I rarely visited Swindon when I lived in Wantage for 10 years, so it was highly unlikely I’d find my way to ‘Bassett’ now that I lived in London. I didn’t even visit during the period of repatriations from 2007 to 2011.

Like many, I watched those events through the eyes of a camera, news and documentary programmes. As the numbers repatriated through the town increased, so did my fascination with why so many turned out to pay respect to military personnel who, for many attending, were strangers?

Other questions were raised. Could these tributes be separated from the politics of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq? What was the legacy of these deaths? What was our responsibility for those affected by these deaths?

I decided to create a piece about the community of Royal Wootton Bassett, their involvement in the repatriations and their impact on the town. I didn’t want to explore the politics of these conflicts or to tell the story of the town per se, my interest was in the human stories behind these events and the wider cost of loss through military conflict beyond the casualties themselves.

I stayed in the town recording interviews, getting to know people in the community over a cup of tea in the tea room or a drink in one of the local pubs. Other personal contacts gave me access to serving military personnel and family and friends of those killed in action. With each interview the research broadened. It included interviews with historians and archivists as well as academic literature, journals and news articles.

The stories I’d heard caused me to reflect on my experiences as the son of a career soldier growing up on military bases. Those reflections gave way to the use of autobiographical material which was interwoven with verbatim testimonies to explore the play’s themes and provide a protagonist.

Listening to those involved in the repatriations, those who served and those affected by loss, provided me with new insights into these events. The 96-year-old Second World War veteran who attended all except three repatriations reflected on the importance of families having somewhere they could visit their lost one after his experiences of burying the dead on the battlefield.

The brother of a soldier killed in the Korean War whose body has never been found movingly confided his belief that “behind every loss there is a bigger picture and we have a duty of sharing and a duty to give support”. The serving Major challenged my perceptions that these men and women were just doing a job when he talked about the cultural challenges faced when trying to win over the hearts and minds of the local population.

With a draft script written, a series of development workshops and rehearsals provided ideas for staging. This included the use of ‘recorded delivery’ as a way of embody-ing the verbatim testimonies. This technique involves recordings of the actual interview being played to the actors in earpieces on stage during the performance.

Rather than learning lines, actors respond to the material during the performance. They retell their interviewees’ stories word-for-word and breath-by-breath. The aim is not only to take in “what” is said in the recordings but also “how” it is said.

Previous performances have included a run in Salisbury — like Royal Wootton Bassett also in Wiltshire. It seems fitting that the show is coming to Oxford given its connections to the repatriation of dead military personnel through its Coroner’s Court, and after Oxfordshire’s RAF Brize Norton took over Royal Wootton Bassett’s role.

Do We Do The Right Thing? is at The Old Fire Station on Feb 18 and 19, at 7.30pm. As a special offer, readers can receive an exclusive 2-for-1 deal on full-priced tickets.
Call 01865 263980 and quote ‘Oxford Times’.