The production starts on New Year’s Eve 1959 with Bett the landlady of a pub, as her younger sister Dotty comes to visit.  The sisters reminisce about their time as Spitfire Girls as the story reverts back to the 1940s and shows them both making the bold move to sign up for an advert to join the ATA.

The basis of the play highlights the difficulties Bett and Dotty faced with their concerned and widowed father.  He was deeply outraged as although women were not allowed to fly planes into actual battles, his daughters knew nothing about flying aircraft.  The other challenge of course is how women were viewed in society and the prejudice they faced at doing a role traditionally associated with men. As the story unfolds, you are shown the lighter and self-determined side of their wartime roles as well as the harsh reality of any conflict.

Although the play underlined the derogatory way the ATA women were viewed by the press, this was counteracted spectacularly as the ATA proved to be a game changer for society by being one of the first British institutions to achieve equal pay for men and women.

As you’d expect from a wartime production, there was the inevitable story of heartbreak and loss. This is balanced out by the relentless dogmatic pursuit, almost an enjoyment one could argue, of the ATA wanting to get the job done.

The story was set in Hampshire where I was born and bred, so it was good to see this play shine a light on the area as I could visualise many of the place names they mentioned in the surrounding region.

When the play concludes in the early hours of New Year’s Day in 1960, and a decade that would go on to be widely considered as a happy time for the UK, there is an unexpected and clever twist right at the end to bring the production full circle.

Showing at The Rep this week until Saturday 21^st June, it is both a poignant and empowering play that I would thoroughly recommend watching.