Exploring the crucial wartime contribution of the Spitfire Girls

SussexWorld

The play comes to the MAST Mayflower Studios, Southampton from March 20-22 and then the Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne from April 15-19 – inspired by the extraordinary true stories of the women who dared to fly during WWII and the incredible bond that tied them together.

Transcript

00:00Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Really lovely

00:06to speak again to Catherine Senior. Now, Catherine, you've written a fascinating play which highlights

00:11a pretty little-known aspect of World War II, The Spitfire Girls, which is on the road

00:16starting off in Southampton at Marst Mayflower Studios, March 20th to the 22nd and then going

00:24to Devonshire Park Eastbourne from April the 15th to the 19th. Now, how did you alight

00:30on this aspect of history and who were these Spitfire Girls?

00:35Yeah, I can't remember where exactly I heard about it but I came across them about, well,

00:43nearly 10 years ago and so in that time I've had three boys and written this play. So yeah,

00:50the Spitfire Girls were the women that delivered aircraft during World War II. So they would

00:59deliver them from the factories to the squadrons. Quite often they were aircrafts that needed

01:04something fitted or they were broken so then they had to be sort of brought back. So there

01:12was a lot of taxiing around these aircrafts and, you know, just 309,000 aircrafts were

01:20delivered during the war by the ATA and millions and millions and millions of miles flown.

01:25It was a huge civilian effort.

01:29Yeah, and essential work, obviously.

01:33Yeah, the RAF wouldn't have, yeah, they, I don't know what they would have done if they

01:41didn't have the ATA delivering these aircrafts for them.

01:45Was it breaking down the boundaries in some ways because they opted for women to fill

01:50these roles as pilots because they were running out of men?

01:54Yeah, they were. They, yeah, they called on the first eight pilots that joined up in 1940

02:04on New Year's Day. Those first women were pilots already. They were joyriders sort of

02:11before the war and I think some of them may have carried on with some of that when they

02:17were delivering aircrafts. I don't know. I've read the odd thing of them going upside down

02:22and there's the odd photograph of them doing lots of tricks. I don't think it was allowed,

02:26but I think they did it. I think they had sort of great fun amongst all of it. And then

02:30my play starts much deeper into the war in 1943 when they were then calling on women

02:37that were of a certain height and were physically fit. And they were putting ads out in newspapers

02:48and Aeroplane magazine was one of, is where the characters in my play see it and they

02:53sign up and quite often they wouldn't have driven a car or, yeah, it was.

03:01I mean, it must have been exhilarating.

03:03And you're not just the author, as if that's not enough, you're in it.

03:08Yeah, yeah, yeah, all being well. Yeah, yeah, I play Bette, yeah, who runs a pub.

03:18We're actually job sharing this role, so there'll be another actress playing Bette

03:23for half the week and I will be doing the first half.

03:26Perfect.

03:26Yeah.

03:27Well, it's called Spitfire Girls and comes to Southampton March 20th to the 22nd,

03:33and then Eastbourne April 15th to the 19th.

03:36Lovely to speak to you.

03:37Yeah.

03:38It goes brilliantly. Thank you.

03:39Great. Thank you very much, Phil.

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Transcript

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