A new play has revealed the Harrogate district’s little-known role in a secret plan to protect the royal family and Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the Second World War.
The Stray is a two-act drama by playwright Keith Burton with the assistance of Harrogate historian Malcolm Neesam.
It tells the story of Harrogate’s role in the Coats Mission, which was a secret plan to evacuate the royal family from London.
Newby Hall, near Ripon, was identified as a possible home for the royal family and a wing of Grove House on Skipton Road in Harrogate, opposite an RAF bunker, was designated as a possible home for Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
On September 8 1940 Buckingham Palace was bombed and the Coats Mission plans were expedited.
However, the RAF and the Secret Intelligence Service did not want the Harrogate district plans to go ahead as they were building Washington bombers at nearby Yeadon and had a station at Forest Moor in Nidderdale feeding code-breaking intelligence to Bletchley Park.
Read more:
- Free walking tours in Harrogate back for smaller groups
- Harrogate History: does Harrogate have connections to slavery?
- The harsh reality of life in Harrogate during the war
Then on September 12 a Junker 88 attacked the Majestic Hotel in Harrogate. These were the only bombs to fall on the town in the war.
Newspapers at the time reported “a stray” bombing by a plane and said it was part of a bigger raid on “northern industrial targets” without naming where the other bombs had fallen.
But the intelligence agencies did not regard it as a stray bomb and two days after the attack on Harrogate the Coats Mission was dropped.
The Stray is based on what might have happened in Harrogate during the week commencing September 8 1940.
Newby Hall.
Cllr Jim Clark, who is the chairman of North Yorkshire County Council and commissioned the play, has a long history of involvement in theatre. He said:
“There have always been stories about Harrogate’s part in the war so I thought this was a unique way of capturing the drama of it. I wanted to be able to make a contribution to help drama groups at schools and amateur dramatic groups. I will have the rights to the play for five years so anybody can perform it within reason.
Mr Clark has approached Harrogate Dramatic Society and Harrogate Theatre with the play. He hopes that it will start in Yorkshire and spread further afield.
