'Foreword' [to The Boy will Do]

A foreword to The Boy Will Do, by John Roddis, a play performed during Higham Ferrers Drama Week in 1951.

Bates writes that 'I was born over the hill...in what was virtually a new town. But in all the most influential respects I was brought up in Higham Ferrers, in its fields and in its valley which it dominates so beautifully'. He closes in a plea for preservation: 'Leave it alone, therefore: the unique group of ecclesiastical buildings, the 18th century houses, the College, the pubs, Wood Street with its limes, the incomparable Square with the Chestnut Trees. It can only grow in beauty'.

In The Boy Will Do. (John Roddis, 1951, p. 3, attached). Reprinted in Souvenir of the 700th Anniversary of the First Borough Charter and of the Festival of Britain. (June 1951. p. 35, attached).