Against the National Interest

Elaine Pritchard explains about the anti-war protesters who feature in the September event she has written for Derby Peace Week.

This week we've had our first read-through for Against the National Interest , a unique event that I've been invited to write and perform as part of this year's Derby Peace Week.

Poster shows Vale Rawlings and images of Wormwood Scrubs

Joining me, at Derby Museum on Sunday, September 20th, from 1pm, will be three actors who will help me stage this talk with dramatic, performative elements.

It will tell the true stories of two anti-war families, one from Burton upon Trent and one from Derby, during the First World War: the Rawlings and the Wheeldons.

The actors will each play a number of real people and all the words they speak will be from original letters and reported speeches at the time. I took the decision not to paraphrase their words as I believe it will make the story of their journeys more authentic and powerful. As narrator I link the events together and fill in details and context.

The people whose words will be brought to life include: conscientious objector Vale Rawlings, his wife Nell and his sister Lily; Vale's friend Austin Smith; MPs Philip Snowden and Charles Duncan; suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst and writer, activist and politician John Smith Clarke.

I wrote about Vale's journey as a conscientious objector in my book Friendship, Love & Truth, which was released last Christmas. But thanks to Vale's descendants, and Staffordshire Record Office, I had access to original letters and documents written by and about Vale that couldn't all find a place in the book.

I wanted to bring the material to life in a more engaging way than simply delivering a talk, so the idea for Against The National Interest was born.

Once we started discussing the idea, the organisers of Derby Peace Week asked me if there was any way of bringing the story of Alice Wheeldon and her family into it. Some people will know that the family were - it is now virtually certain - framed by a war time intellingence agency and convicted of a fake plot to poison the Prime Minister and the Labour leader.

It was easy to weave their story in, because I knew that there was a slight connection between the families and they were both - unfairly in my opinion - wrongly accused of acting against the national interest. There is strong evidence that the 'powers-that-be' put Vale and three members of the Wheeldon family in prison during the war to achieve very different objectives.

Hearing the script read by actors Dan, Dom and Cait this week also brought home to me how many contemporary issues our society faces today were evident in these stories of 110 years ago.

Tickets for Against the National Interest are available online now from the Derby Museums website. Go to https://derbymuseums.org/event/against-the-national-interest-with-elaine-pritchard. General tickets are £5, with concessions at £3 and pay-it-forward tickets to support Derby Museums at £10.