HOME

Close enough to Touch
by Fred Lawless



Fred Lawless - Close enough to Touch

BBC Radio 4: The Saturday Playhouse


Broadcast: Saturday 27th September 1997 @ 2:30 p.m.

"Close Enough To Touch" is the dramatised story of the loss of the submarine HMS Thetis in Liverpool Bay on 1st June, 1939, which cost 99 lives.

The HMS/M Thetis was a brand new submarine, the third of the then modern and new class of submarine boats... the "T" class boats. She was the first submarine built on Merseyside by Cammell Laird. She was the pride of the navy, of the men who built her and the men who sailed in her. To so very many, ninety nine of them, she was soon to become their tomb. On her very first dive, her very first venture into the element for which she had been designed and built, she died. Those with her, save four died too. So close to safety, with the stern above water, the steel hull that should have protected them from the dangers of the deep, became their coffin wall. Why did this tragedy happen?

The play was recorded on location at the historic warship site, Birkenhead, Merseyside.

With Nicholas Farrell [Lieutenant-Commander Bolus, RN], David Fenwick [Leading Stocker Mack Arnold], John McArdle [Petty Officer E. Mitchell], Russell Dixon [The Newsreader], Malcolm Hebden [Captain Oram], Michael Beckley [Lieutenant Woods], Angus Sutherland [Lieutenant W. A. W. Poland, RN], Jeff Hordley [Lieutenant H. Chapman, RN], and Tom Higgins [Leading Seaman W. L. Hambrook].

Music composed and played by Paul Culligan.

Technical Presentation by Steve Brook.

Directed by Melanie Harris

90 minutes

Jim

Back to top



Sitemap

Radio Plays
Apples
Potatoes
Vegetables
Wine Making
Music
Artwork
Cosby Methodist Church
Gokart Racing
Links to other sites
Sitemap xml
Contact Us