Giant concrete cooling towers just outside Leeds might seem an unlikely source for a play, but local playwright Garry Lyons decided he needed to tell the stories of those who lived and worked in their massive shadows.
When the Ferrybridge Power Station towers were blown up after they were decommissioned thousands made the trip to see them come down. Lyons is an award-winning writer who has used extensive interviews with workers and locals to create a show about change, but also full of laughs examining what these concrete landmarks that could be seen for miles meant for his community.
In what ways were the towers architecturally significant?
The eight cooling towers were huge, nearly 400 feet high, with two 650ft chimney stacks alongside. When you came across them at night, when they were all lit up, they were a really spectacular sight. In my imagination, the power station was like a cathedral to industry, and the existence of a prehistoric enclosure and burial site beside it only enhanced the sense that you were in the presence of some other-worldly pagan force.
You moved to the Ferrybridge area a few years ago – how did you feel about the cooling towers as a local resident?
The cooling towers were like sleeping giants, watching over the wide-open terrain around them. Initially, I contemplated writing a kids’ fantasy in which they stirred from their slumbers and came to life. Then, after the power station fire in 2014, I started following the story of its likely closure. It was the latest in a series of highly visible symbols of the demise of the Yorkshire coalfield, and I was curious to know how local people felt about it. Were they sad, like losing an old friend? Indifferent to the onwards march of progress? Or pleased to see the back of an eyesore that had belched out smoke over the town for 50 years?
Were local people proud of the towers (maybe because they literally put the area on the map)?
I’m not sure pride is the right word, but the power station gave the town an identity. Someone I spoke to remembers going away to university and, when he was asked where he was from, he always mentioned the towers, as if they were the Eiffel Tower or Big Ben.
Do they miss them now they’re gone?
A lot do, especially people who worked at the power station. The opening lines of the play are from a guy who worked there for 30 years, watching in tears as the towers were demolished. “I spent a lifetime trying to keep that place going. Now it’s gone in seconds,” he says. The power station was a tough, dangerous place to work in. It was full of toxic dust and asbestos, with men doing hard, physical tasks, often at a great height. But there was a camaraderie among the workforce that’s hard to replace and is fondly remembered. And there was a rich social and community life associated with the power station. There were sports clubs, charity events and Christmas parties for local children. Slowly, over the years, these were all cut.
The output of the towers obviously resulted in significant environmental concerns, but what positive effect did they have on the surrounding community?
The power station provided work. At its peak, it provided 900 jobs. And it generated enough energy to keep two million homes going. While very few people mourn the end of the coal industry, the amount of energy pumped out by Ferrybridge and similar facilities has not yet been matched by modern technology, hence the crisis we’re now facing in the UK. Of course, if the problem had been anticipated and investment in renewable alternatives been made sooner, we wouldn’t have an energy problem and we’d have a green revolution with lots of new sustainable jobs. But that’s another story.
What was it like when they were demolished – did local residents celebrate or was there a degree of mourning?
The cooling towers were demolished in three phases, and there was a fourth demolition to blow down the chimney stacks and boiler houses. I went over to see the second blow down, and I couldn’t get anywhere near. There were thousands of people standing outside in the cold and rain to watch. They were big explosions, which obviously caught the public’s imagination. Cheers went up as the towers crumpled in on themselves like clay pots. For most people, it was the scale of the show that impressed them. It’s not every day you see 400 foot high buildings collapse to the ground. Obviously, some people had a deeper emotional reaction. But the majority saw it as great entertainment, I think. Something to film and put on YouTube, or a day out with the kids. It was only later that people began to reflect on what had gone. The last towers were brought down at night, and you could feel the tremors from miles away. It was like an earthquake.
When did you know that the stories you had collected were the skeleton of a theatre show?
Almost immediately. The first set of interviews were so rich in character and detail that I knew I had something that would engage an audience. The challenge was finding a way to edit the stuff and shape it into an evening’s entertainment. I ended up with about 25 hours’ worth of recording and had to whittle it down to 100 minutes that takes the audience on an emotional journey, while telling the community’s story over the last 50 or 60 years – and with a limited company of five actors. It’s more about what you cut out than leave in.
Life in the shadow of a power station sounds a bit grim, but your show is filled with laughter and music – why is that important?
The show, in part, is a celebration of working-class culture that, in many ways, has been lost along with the industries it depended upon. I’ve mentioned the clubs and pubs. Well, they sustained the careers of comedians, musicians and all-round entertainers, and DIY participation among local talent from within towns like Knottingley and Ferrybridge was huge. The play reflects that natural thirst for popular culture and creative expression, which doesn’t disappear however hard the times. The show ends on an upbeat note, which I hope will surprise people, and highlight that there’s always fun to be had through creativity whatever the circumstances.
What conversations do you hope the show will prompt?
We’ve done a couple of online readings of the play and shared it with our interviewees and those close to the project. Among that core group, I think there’s quite a lot of quiet excitement about the show and what it could do for Knottingley and Ferrybridge in bringing the place some much-needed publicity and attention at last. I wouldn’t want to predict what the wider public might make of it, particularly those who don’t know the area at all. I hope people see connections between what’s happened in Knottingley and Ferrybridge and the experiences of other similar places right across the country. It’s a very local story but one that contains a lot of general truths.
Blow Down is in Bramall Rock Void, Leeds Playhouse from 3rd – 11th February, https://leedsplayhouse.org.uk/whats-on/