How The Black Death came to Exwick!
The archaeologist's box
Rehearsing the play
Investigating an artefact
What does the horseshoe mean?
All photos from the collection of J.W. Somers
Remembering a community drama project at Exwick Middle School, in 1997
By Richard Fox
The Black Death revisited
In 1997, The Black Death revisited Exwick Middle School in the form of a large wooden box. Inside the box pupils discovered carefully wrapped artefacts from a supposed archaeological dig at the site of a plague village. Gradually, they worked with the objects and were helped to piece together a story. There was a horseshoe, a fragment from the Bible, two old letters, a bunch of herbs, a silver bracelet and a tally chart, with names and ominous crosses by them. A girl named Ursula, daughter of the Lord of the Manor, had died; a young silversmith named William had loved her ... gradually the story was invented.
Acting out Bubonic Plague
In fact, the archaeologist's box had been made by John Somers, drama specialist and lecturer at the School of Education, University of Exeter. Working with teachers Martha Hemsted and Nicky Hobbs, John managed the project over a hectic two-week period until the class of twenty-five 12 and 13 year-olds were able to put on a play of their own devising in a performance for their parents and for the rest of the school.
The realism of the play depended on the work that the pupils had done in advance, to understand the causes of the Bubonic Plague, its terrifying arrival in England in the fourteenth century and the helplessness of ordinary people, who could neither understand nor cure it. John had carefully arranged the 'clues' to lead the children to discover that the plague village that they were investigating had occupied the very same geographical location as their own modern community.
Did you participate in this project?
Following the performance, the children acted as "experts" answering questions from the audience. Later they were let into the secret that the box, and its contents, had all been meticulously prepared by John himself. Some children had already guessed this, whilst others probably had not. Are any of the participants in the project still living in Exwick? Are there some familiar faces in the photographs? What are your memories of it? Did it change your attitudes towards studying history?
Bill Pattinson was the Head of Exwick Middle school at that time and welcomed John and his helpers into the school, seeing the project as a means of enriching the children's experience. Nicky Hobbs, the class teacher, was able to involve some of the children in playing mediaeval music, to accompany the play. This kind of bold cross-curriculum project is perhaps not so common nowadays, given the National Curriculum and the emphasis on assessment. Or does it still go on?
The "producer" of the project
John Somers carried out many community drama projects in and around Exeter. Now retired, though still an honorary fellow of the university drama department, John is happy to talk to any survivors of the Exwick Black Death project, or indeed of his many other educational drama projects, that so imaginatively involved local children in discovering their own history.