'The Shadow Factory'

'The Shadow Factory' is a play written by Howard Brenton, taking place in and around Southampton, and at various sites where manufacturing of Spitfire and Spitfire parts was dispersed to following the bombing of the Supermarine factory in September 1940.

Purely by chance, my wife stumbled across announcement that the play would be performed in a village nearby later that week. 

So we thought, "why not?" and bought tickets.

I won't summarise the play, or give a critical review, but we enjoyed it and I just want to pick up on a few things for this blog post. 

First of all, it hadn't really clicked with me before that the people whose spaces were requisitioned by the government for Spitfire production wouldn't just simply have given up their business and premise. Makes perfect sense that there was resistance to that, of course!

The characterisation of the 'Southampton - Portsmouth' romance in the play as a "mixed marriage" got a good roaring laugh from the audience!

There were two key sites in the play, where most of the action takes place: the Sunlight Laundry and Hursley House.

The site of the Sunlight Laundry is actually a little more than five minutes walk from where we live and is part of the Shirley Spitfire Trail.

Hursley House is where the design department moved to, after having spent a few months in teaching huts at the grounds of what is now the University of Southampton's Highfield campus

This is what the Highfield site looks like nowadays; no trace of the huts is left, but there are plans for a Spitfire Makers plaque near where the huts stood.

So time for a visit to Hursley House, which was requisitioned by the government for housing the Supermarine design departments. They were welcomed by Lady Cooper on December 7, 1940.

Of course, there is no sign anymore of the 'floral Spitfire' that Lady Cooper prepared as welcome for Supermarine ....

But the House is still there!

Lady Cooper moved to the attic with her servants; I assume these are some of her windows.

Through a window, we could see some of the wood panelling that Lady Cooper was so concerned about with Supermarine moving in. But as we couldn't get into the house, here's a picture of that wood panelling from the internet.

If a plaque is ever unveiled at Hursley House, we will of course go back there to take some pictures of it.