Do you remember the first stories you heard? Perhaps they were told by the person looking after you, or they were read to you from books your parents had loved as children. However they come to us, the stories we hear as young children go in deep. They take root, shaping our imagination and our sense of what a story can be.

Some of the first stories my mother told me were tales of her own youth during WWII. When war broke out in 1939, she left school for good. She was just 15, and became an evacuee – living with people she didn’t know, well away from her parents’ home in London. She was lonely and bored, until she was allowed to return to London in 1943, aged 18.

That June 1943 she met John, a young RAF pilot, through her work at a Red Cross Post, and they had a whirlwind romance. He was 21. He wrote to her, a lot. And she wrote back. On his brief 24-hour and 48-hour leaves, he’d take the train from Yorkshire (where he was stationed) to London so they could be together for a few hours. He gave her a sweetheart brooch, in the design of silver wings – I have that brooch still. She gave him a jointed brown cow called Bullseyes, as a good luck mascot.

I can so easily conjure how it felt when my mother told me the story of John. I loved every part of it. When she reached the end, I’d beg her to tell me all over again. There was an intensity about her when she spoke of him, and a show of emotion that was riveting for a 5-year-old. She made me feel I was the only person who knew about John, apart from her. Like all good stories, it became a private world we shared.

In 1989, when my mother was developing dementia, she gave me a box containing letters and memorabilia from her wartime years. Thirty more years passed before I felt able to properly explore the contents. And when I did, in 2019, I discovered John’s letters in a bundle tied up with string: an extraordinary moment. I read and reread the letters, trying to fit them around what I already knew of John from my mother.

Fast forward to 2023, when I mentioned the story, and the letters, to my colleague and friend the composer Ábel MGE. Well, long story short, we decided to create something together, and then sound designer Ben Cordell joined our team. We’re delighted that Blackout, the audio drama we’ve made, which is based on John’s letters, will premiere at the Bloomsbury Festival on October 22^nd this year.

Ábel, Ben and I are so glad to have the support of Open Field Arts, and we’re planning further events and stagings of Blackout for next year… so watch this space.

All along the way, I’ve done my best to honour John and my mother, and the small child I was when I first heard the story. That has led me to research John’s life, as far as I can. I suppose I’ve tried to complete a circle, or several circles. Last week, as part of my researches, I took the train to York, travelling along the same route as the blacked-out wartime trains John would have taken – and I spent a day at the Yorkshire Air Museum, which is on the site of RAF Elvington, where John was stationed in October 1943. Staff and volunteers at the museum could not have been kinder or more helpful – we’re so grateful to them all for their ongoing support and interest. I’m still processing my intensely moving experience of the Museum, so more of that next time…