I have grown up listening to this play, written by my dad, Eric Smith, before I was born. It was written for a one act play festival or competition run by the BBC in Manchester. It was performed by members of Farnworth Little Theatre, a local amateur theatre, where my dad was an active member.

The story is a local legend and concerns the skull of St Ambrose Barlow. Ambrose Barlow was a Benedictine monk who was born in Cholton Cum Hardy. He was arrested for following his faith after Charles I proclaimed that all priests should leave the country or risk being imprisoned or executed as traitors. In April 1641, Ambrose Barlow was arrested as he led his congregation in Easter prayers. He was taken to Lancaster Castle to await a trail. In September he was tried and as he refused to renounce his faith he was sentenced to death. Two days later, on September 10^th, he was taken from Lancaster Castle, drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution, hanged, dismembered, quartered and boiled in oil. His head was afterwards placed in public view, on a pike. His cousin, Francis Downes, Lord of Wardley Hall, a devout Catholic, rescued his skull and preserved it at Wardley where it remains to this day.

The play deals with a legend that grew in the local area that if his skull was ever moved from Wardley Hall terrible storms and repercussions would follow until it was returned.

My involvement with the play began when I was completing my studies in music, in the early 80’s, and we were tasked with writing a number of compositions for our final year. I chose to write the curtain music to my dad’s play as I loved the play, and it gave me an opportunity to write music in the style of different periods as the play starts in the C17th and ends in the C20th. I, and my father, have never heard my composition because in the 80’s as a music student it was not possible to record the music, and I handed it in as a written score.

After my father passed away, I inherited his reel-to-reel tape recorder and a box of tapes. In amongst the box of tapes I was happy to find the original recording of the play that was played on the BBC, in Manchester, all those years ago. We decided to see if we could copy the recording into a digital format so that we could record the music that I had written back in the 80’s.

It was a nerve wracking half hour setting up the old reel to reel and playing the tape. All the sound effect edits had been spliced together so many years ago using special Sellotape and we watched it spinning, holding our breath to see if the ancient tape would hold as we transferred the sound into our modern equipment.

Fortunately, all went well, and we managed to listen to the play and convert it into digital format.

It was exciting to hear it again, many of the actors were people I remembered from watching countless plays at the theatre. My father often did the sound for the plays, and I was allowed from a very young age to climb into the sound box beside him and watch the action on stage or to perch on a wooden box, made by one of the members for me, so I could peer at the stage from a window at the entrance hall above the heads of the audience.

Now the fun begins!

Recording the music and putting it all together.

Written by Shelley Aldred