The play begins with the fall of the cooling towers at Ferrybridge Power station,  focusing on an employee with 30 years of service, lamenting:  “I spent a lifetime trying to keep that place going. Now it’s gone in seconds.”

The focus of the play is very much loss, as much about the fall of a community as the dramatic collapse of two cooling towers. A community that feels left behind; sold on a promise of stable work for generations to come, that was ultimately unfulfilled in a single generation.  We talked to two of the main contributors to the play – Yan and Margaret –  whose stories are brought to life by the actors on stage.

The people behind the voices of the stage production tell the tale of a once-thriving community, fading due to neglect and lack of investment. But also that of an enduring community, despite the demise of the physical space, and the importance of theatre in giving a voice to those who feel they have been ignored.

Between 2020 and 2022, the cooling towers of Ferrybridge Power Station in Knottingley were demolished, marking the end of nearly a century of history tied to the production of energy. Inspired by this, Garry Lyons gathered the stories and experiences of the local community living in the shadow of the towers and created Blow Down, mapping the fortunes of a post-industrial Yorkshire town from the 1970s to the modern day.

Yan, whose heritage was tightly interwoven into the local community, and Margaret, whose family moved to Yorkshire from Scotland to work in the pits, both had their stories conveyed verbatim. The play tracks their experiences and others growing up in the thriving community that existed around the Ferrybridge Power station and pits, and its eventual decline.

Margaret and Yan both speak fondly of growing up in the shadow of the towers and talk of a community forged together despite their differences. Margaret moved to the area in the 1960s from Scotland, moving as her family sought work in the Kellingley Colliery. She was one of many, as a large group of workers from Scotland and Durham moved to Knottingley and Ferrybridge in pursuit of work at the power station or mines.  “We built a little Scotland,” she says, “right here in Yorkshire.”

Yan’s family had lived in the area for generations, and thus he can give a different perspective on how the local population reacted to the influx of new inhabitants. Both talk of initial hostility between the two communities thrust together by circumstance. Concerns about jobs and housing, and as Margaret jokingly puts it, “the Scots stealing the women” caused friction.

However, over time greater cooperation occurred between the groups, as it appeared the new population could create jobs rather than take them away. A new more cohesive community could be born.

Yan’s family gained work through this new influx of people and a shared community was allowed to flourish. “On Warwick estate” Yan notes “ You left your doors open, not just unlocked,  from Christmas to New Year’s and people went in and out of people’s houses as they pleased, celebrating with one another.” Garry Lyons brings these experiences to life in Blow Down, with Margaret’s warmth and wit alongside her fellow Scot, Anna, a large presence in the play, illustrating the camaraderie that developed among those living in the shadow of the towers.

Both Yan and Margaret talk fondly of their time growing up in the area. While nostalgia can make us look upon the past with a rose-tinted view, their accounts tell of a local community thriving. A whole host of pubs littered the landscape, and a community centre funded by miners’ wages tells of a population invested in the ties to their local community.

Margaret recalls packed clubs being a regular occurrence, she said:  “It was always busy. They used to have busloads in. They used to have to shut the doors because they couldn’t let anyone else in!”

Even a locally renowned carnival, reminiscent of that of Notting Hill, was an annual celebration going back decades. Yan says “people would spend weeks making outfits. It was massive!” Their accounts reflect what Garry seeks to encapsulate in his play, a working-class community that forged close bonds, despite the difficult and sometimes dangerous jobs they carried out.

Both Yan and Margaret speak of a community once thriving, and both too speak of anger at its decline. Yan points to the decline in industry leading to slow neglect of the area. Yan says “There’s nothing here now, there’s no investment in the community. It’s the same as loads of little mining towns in the North.”

The power station and the colliery were gradually drawn back in scale decades before the eventual blowing up of the cooling towers leading to a gradual dismantling of local community ties. They argue that community hubs remain underfunded and public services that were once provided are now taken away. Yan in particular notes promises that a swimming pool would be kept open, something of particular importance with the community being surrounded by waterways. He said “I have the letter somewhere. They promised they would keep the swimming pool open, promised they wouldn’t shut it. That’s gone now.”

The thriving social scene of pubs has now been reduced to a handful of sites, and the community centres have one by one been redeveloped. Knottingley Community Hub originally funded by the labour of the miners fell into disrepair, a microcosm for a community built on the promises of prosperity for generations to come, now broken.  

The picture you get from talking to both Margaret and Yan is a sense of anger at the state of their community, left to fade unheard. Yan notes “people don’t know what they’ve lost because they’ve not experienced it.”

Margaret herself says that she feels “their history has been being rubbed out.”

While anger at the fading of community is a through line in both Blow Down and the accounts of Yan and Margaret, you also can get the sense of an eagerness to sustain their social ties and celebrate their community regardless. Yan himself has made substantial efforts to preserve the voices of the local community. He interviewed significant figures from the area, recording their accounts for perpetuity and sharing the stories of people who have since passed away. He also created a Facebook page for people to share their stories growing up in the area, strengthening social ties that had been strained by time and distance. Yan noted it was a place to “post pictures, memories, get people talking despite living miles away.”

On this fertile ground, Garry was able to create Blow Down, amplifying the voices of people eager to share their experiences. Blow Down allows a creative expression for the community, something lost with the shutting down of pubs and halls, which put local comedians and performers out of business. This makes it all the more important that Red Ladder theatre company is bringing the Theatre Royal Wakefield production of Blow Down to local venues, hopefully reigniting the creative scene in the area. Local people can see their stories dramatized on their doorstep.  

Margret and Yan both articulate their excitement at the play to possibly draw attention to the difficulties of the area and instigate change. Blow Down captures the voices of people who believe they have been unheard, bringing those voices to new ears in non-traditional venues,  potentially inspiring the change that the community seeks.

The Theatre Royal Wakefield production of Blow Down has been brought to Cluntergate Centre, Queens Mill and Grove Hall, courtesy of a Wakefield Council Culture Grant.  Red Ladder Theatre Company collaborated with The Cluntergate Centre to secure its Theatre for Wakefield Project, funded by Wakefield Council to bring professional theatre productions and performances to non-traditional venues, bringing Blow Down to the doorsteps of the community that inspired it. 

The Theatre for Wakefield Blow Down shows will be performing at: 

Friday 17th February – Grove Hall, South Kirkby

Saturday 18th February – The Cluntergate Centre, Horbury

Sunday 19th February – The Queen’s Mill Castleford, Castleford

Tickets for the three shows are available to buy via the Theatre Royal Wakefield website:

Blow Down Tickets

The full Blow Down tour dates can be found here:  Theatre Royal Wakefield

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