Welcome to a new part of our website.

To accompany our latest production, Peril at Sea, we worked with The Astor Theatre, Deal, to deliver an Oral Histories project. We interviewed people about their lives on or around the sea, the results of which you can see on these pages. Our interviewees include Merchant Seamen, a Submariner, a former Coastguard, RNLI volunteers and people who grew up or lived on the coast. We focused on those living in Deal, and the surrounding area, and Portsmouth.

Feel free to browse this website. Some of the information is available in both written and audio formats, re-recorded by actors. Where you see the play button (), click on that to hear an actor’s voice.

This project was funded by Heritage Lottery, whose funding also supported our touring production; a display showcasing these histories; schools workshops and a Creative Ideas pack for schools. Thank you to National Lottery players for supporting this fund.

Thank you so much to all those people we spoke to – thank you for your time and raiding your memory banks!

And thank you to Jane Banks at Kingsdown Village Hall for brilliant photos, and the crew of LV21 for their help with this project.

Thank you to those who supplied these voices: Robin Kingsland, Bill Bingham, Andrew Forbes, Philip Bird and Gareth Wildig.

If you would like to add your memories of a career at sea or life on the coast to our archive, or you have some photos you would like to share, please do get in touch with us. Email us on nicola@uptheroadtheatre.co.uk – we’d love to hear from you.