The Sunday Times
27 July 2008
Two new works hope to reignite debate over the deaths at infamous barracks
When James Collinson came home for the weekend, on leave from Deepcut barracks where he was training, he brought a bag of dirty washing for his mum. The 17-year-old had just passed his driving test and was talking about what type of car he might buy. Things were going well in his army career and he had just been selected to train as an air dispatcher. His mum Yvonne Collinson dropped him off at Deepcut the following afternoon, but by 10pm he had been found dead, with a single gunshot wound through his chin.
“The army told me the next day he had taken his own life, but to me it just didn’t stick,” says Yvonne. “He was a cheery, happy-go-lucky boy, and there was absolutely no reason.” Although his mother had no idea at the time, Collinson was the fourth soldier to die in the now notorious Princess Royal barracks, Deepcut, Surrey, and the controversy surrounding their deaths is set to become the subject of two new plays.
“The response from most people I’ve spoken to is generally the same,” says Philip Ralph, the playwright who has spent almost three years researching the incidents at Deepcut, where between 1995 and 2002, Privates Sean Benton, 20, from Hastings, Sussex, Cheryl James, 18, from Llangollen, North Wales, Geoff Gray, 17, from Seaham, County Durham, and Collinson, from Perth, all died of gunshot wounds. “Usually they’ll say, ‘That’s the one where the army said they were suicides, but they were really murders, and the army wanted to cover that up.’ That’s what most people think. What worries me is people seem to be all right with that.”
Deep Cut will have its world premiere at the Traverse theatre during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and Ralph hopes his play will put the tragic events back in the public eye, where he believes they should still be. “I want people to be moved by the story of these four soldiers, and the way their families have been treated, but also profoundly pissed off,” he says.
Following the deaths, allegations were made of bullying, insufficient supervision and poorly monitored access to weapons at the training barracks, but despite 13 years of campaigning from the four bereaved families, there was no public inquiry. “If the parents ever did get granted a public inquiry,” says Ralph, “I believe it could do for the army what the Stephen Lawrence inquiry did to the police.”
His views are likely to cause controversy when the play is staged next month, but Ralph has taken great pains to stick to the facts, slavishly poring over legal documents and interview transcripts. “I’ve become a Deepcut geek,” he laughs.
Ralph has brought the story to the stage using verbatim theatre, or what he describes as “theatrical journalism”. He has drawn heavily from conversations with Des and Doreen James, the parents of Cheryl, and their struggle to make sense of the “massively complex” story surrounding the Deepcut deaths, as well as police statements and excerpts from the Blake review, an investigation by Nicholas Blake QC, a human rights lawyer. This last document was heavily criticised by the families, as they believe Blake only had access to “deeply flawed” evidence.
Neatly summing up Ralph’s cautious, but by no means detached approach to the sensitive material, the play’s tagline is, “Don’t embellish. Don’t exaggerate. Tell the truth. Stick to it.”
“For the audience, polemic is all fine and dandy,” says Ralph, a Rada-trained actor. “But if someone is just telling you what they want you to believe, you lose interest. There’s no drama there either.”
Although he resisted the temptation to turn certain characters into “baddies”, and only ever used direct quotes, his script attempts to convey the huge sense of grief and injustice felt by the families. In one scene, James’s parents meet Colonel Nigel Josling, commanding officer at Deepcut when their daughter died. Eight years have passed since Cheryl’s death, but it is the first time they have spoken. In the interview transcript, Josling insists — wrongly — that he sent the parents a letter to express his sympathy, and cannot remember where the parents live. “Either he hadn’t checked or didn’t care,” says Ralph. “Take your pick. In moments like that I hope to get across a real sense of the James’s frustration.”
For Ralph, the facts alone should be powerful enough to stir up debate and prevent the story from going underground again, where he believes the army would rather it stayed. “If the army or MoD had any interest in doing the right thing, they clearly lost that interest a long time ago. Now they just want to close the story down.”
After the MoD announced earlier this year that they would close the Deepcut barracks in 2013, Ralph is worried the general public assumes that means the case has been closed. “There are still so many unanswered questions. Deepcut was a camp completely out of control. That’s why media interest and hopefully, these two plays, will be vital to the parents’ campaign. To them, any press attention is oxygen.”
While Ralph’s play examines the Deepcut scandal from a factual point of view, another playwright has focused on the impact it had on the soldiers’ families. Fiona Evans’s play, which was originally titled Deepcut until she heard about Ralph’s script, is based on two years of interviews with the Gray and Collinson families.
“Some of the media reporting over the years has been very dispassionate, with masses of legal and military information to digest,” says Evans, who won a Fringe First award at Edinburgh last year for her play, Scarborough, about a 15-year-old boy who falls in love with his teacher. “I wanted to centre on the personal, human aspects of the story, and show just how little respect these families have been shown by the British Establishment,” she explains.
When she first went to discuss the play with Geoff Gray’s parents, she couldn’t believe what they requested for the script. “I asked Geoff and Diane what they would like included in the play and their answer came as a surprise: ‘Laughs’. They wanted the play to reflect the spirit and personality of their son, and of James Collinson.”
In fact, Evans’s play’s title, Geoff Dead: Disco For Sale, comes from a joke Geoff Snr made when he realised newspaper obituaries were allowed the first five words for free. “I guess you could call it gallows humour,” says Evans. “It’s that black comedy that helps you through times that would otherwise be unbearable. I’m completely amazed at how both families have coped. They have retained humour, dignity and a fighting spirit.”
Evans wants to move her audience by making them “laugh and cry” along with the bereaved families, but also hopes it will make the audience think. “Good theatre should always pose questions to the audience,” she says. “I hope this play can open up a debate, and make us think about how we protect our soldiers.”
When the play is staged at Newcastle’s Live Theatre in October, she is considering passing round a petition for the audience to sign, or inviting them to write a letter to their local MPs. “A play does things that a newspaper article can’t,” says Evans. “I hope both these plays get publicity for the campaign. Who knows, maybe it will prick a few consciences?”
Yvonne Collinson welcomes both new plays about Deepcut, and has co-operated with both writers during their research. What began as a search for information on what happened the night her son died has turned into a far wider-reaching campaign. She believes vital questions must be asked about how the army is run, and how young recruits are treated in the future. “I don’t think I’ll ever find out how James died,” she says. “Any evidence that was there has long gone. I’m not looking for people to be held accountable either, it’s too late.” For her, a public inquiry would force the army to rethink certain crucial issues, such as raising the minimum age for joining up, introducing an independent military ombudsman, and reviewing disciplinary practices, which some believe border on harassment.
“The British army should be something to be proud of,” she says. James dreamed of joining the army from a young age, and joined the army cadets when he was 14. “We need an army, and a good, strong one. But I wouldn’t encourage anyone to join up at this point. It needs to be better, and safer.”
Collinson, who has read draft versions of both Ralph and Evans’ scripts, is looking forward to attending a performance of Deep Cut at the Traverse in August, along with the Jameses and the Grays, with whom she has become close friends. “I’m grateful to Philip for throwing this open to the public and letting them make their own minds up,” says Collinson. “I just want to get people thinking. Maybe the public have been conned too? You assume the army and the government do things properly. Why would you ever question it?”
Deep Cut is at Traverse Theatre from July 31 to August 24, www.edfringe.com
Geoff Dead: Disco for Sale is at Live Theatre, Newcastle from October 9 to November 8, www.live.org.uk