Save The Wreck

I thought I’d share with you the inspiration behind writing ‘Save the Wreck’.

If you’ve read my recent posts, you’ll know that I was commissioned to write a 30-minute stage play for the 2026 Fresh Ink Festival. https://www.middlechildtheatre.co.uk/fresh-ink

Nice plug there! Hope some of you can make it. It’s a full weekend of writerly fun, plays, workshops, and talks, and it’s great for a family weekend out.

So, back to the play, I decided to write about the importance of green spaces and the impact of overcrowded housing estates. I had grown up on a council estate in Hull, and behind us were open fields. All the kids hung out there, using our coats as goalposts, picking brambles and making dens. I remember my first time on a motorbike. My brother got a scrambler bike for his birthday, and I insisted on a turn. I’m not sure how old I was, but Dad let me sit on the seat and explained how it worked. (If Mum were there, this would never have happened)

“Do you think you can do it?” he asked

“Yeah, I got it”, I said, gripping the handlebars. The engine revved loudly.

“I’m gonna let go, pull the grip back sl…ow…ly!”

That was the last thing I heard him shout. I was zooming across the field at God knows what speed. Shit!

I saw the bramble bushes come into sight, and I started to wobble.  Then, crunch, I was hurled headfirst into a nettle bush.

As I stood up, a thousand and one needles pierced my skin.

I walked home, stiff, like an extra from a zombie apocalypse movie. My mum gave me a bottle of calamine lotion, and an hour later, a ghostly white figure handed her the empty bottle back.

 Yeah, thinking about it, not all those memories were great.

Anyway, those fields were a big part of our childhood, but sadly, the land was sold to developers and became a housing estate.

Then, just over ten years ago, I moved to a village outside of Hull. I found a house that backed onto wide open fields. Space to breathe at last.

I loved watching the wildlife. I opened my curtains in the morning to fields dotted with rabbits—hundreds of them scattered like daisies. At dusk, deer would nervously peer from behind the trees, sometimes brave enough to bounce over the fields.

We’d watch fox cubs playing at dusk. It was just perfect!

But it didn’t last; after only three years, the land was sold, and the diggers moved in. Their habitat was destroyed – I remember looking out early one morning and seeing a lone rabbit standing on a giant mound of earth, looking around, wondering what the hell was going on; it broke my heart.

We would see deer trotting down the main roads with nowhere to go, and the foxes trying to find dens for their cubs in hedges next to the main road. The developers didn’t care; they didn’t care what impact it had on the community. It was all for one thing…greed! Now, I know there is a housing crisis; I understand that more houses are needed, but at what cost? We lose all wildlife, we have no green spaces for our kids to play, nowhere to walk and spend time in nature – we need these things too, and there must be a compromise.

Anyway, I’ve ranted on for long enough.

The Wreck follows four characters in their late twenties living on a council estate in Hull.

Shannon and Dave are high school sweethearts and have just moved into their own council house on the estate where they grew up with their best friends, Chelsea and Scratch.

Shannon is pregnant and, after a miscarriage, is feeling very anxious about her pregnancy. Her dad has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. She has bills coming in left, right and centre, and Dave, well, he’s a bit of a plank – although a lovable plank. Things start to spiral out of control for Shannon, and when there is a proposal to build on the much-loved wreck where they all grew up, it’s the last straw. She has had enough, and she will not let this happen, so the four of them plot a series of chaotic plans to stop the build.

I’ve really enjoyed writing it, but, as writers do, I’ve gone over. It’s currently at fifty minutes, so I’m trying to edit it down, without losing the story or flow.

If you can get to Hull for the festival, please come and say hi.  I’ll be as awkward as ever, but I would love to meet you.