AN award-winning play dramatising the story of one of Southport’s most famous visitors is to open at the Arts Centre.

Not About Heroes by Stephen McDonald tells of First World War poet Wilfred Owen – who briefly lived on Lord Street, and was also billeted at the Queen’s Hotel – and his meeting with fellow poet Siegfried Sassoon in a military hospital in Scotland.

The two poets are the only characters in the play, which is narrated by Sassoon and revealed through flashbacks of the war.

The drama, first staged in 1982, is currently touring after a successful run at London’s Trafalgar Studios.

Fittingly, the Arts Centre is just a stone’s throw away from Owen’s old lodgings at 168a Lord Street.

The revered poet stayed there in November and December 1916 while taking charge of firing practice at Crossens rifle range.

He was placed in lodgings at the Queen’s Hotel, but was less than impressed with the facilities.

In a letter to his mother Susan Owen during his second stint at the establishment, dated December 9, 1916, he wrote: “I am back at the Queen’s in a rather poor little room at the top.�

He had stayed at the hotel once before, in November 1916, before being moved to Fleetwood.

It seemed to be a decision that chimed with Owen’s own wishes.

On his arrival in Fleetwood, in another letter to his mother dated November 6, 1916, he wrote: “I like this digs far better than the Queen’s Hotel life.�

Owen left Fleetwood and returned to battle at the Somme in 1917. Although not as devastating as the murderous battle the year before, conditions were still appalling. Owen’s first taste of action saw him face 50 hours under barrage from German guns in a rain-filled shell-hole in no man’s land. He found himself in and out of hospital.

Finally, after spending three days trapped in a cellar destroyed by shells, he was removed from the front.

Suffering from shellshock, Owen was transferred to Craiglockhart Hospital near Edinburgh in June 1917, where his chance friendship with Sassoon occurred.

Owen returned to the front in September 1918 after having been promoted to Lieutenant, and his bravery saw him honoured with a Military Cross medal.

He was tragically killed, aged 25, on November 4, 1918. His parents received the news about his death seven days later – on the very day the Armistice was signed.

The poet’s new friend Sassoon survived, having been wounded and invalided home in July.

In his last letter to his mother, written whilst underground and dated October 31, 1918, Owen ended with the line: “Of this I am certain you could not be visited by a band of friends half so fine as surround me here.�

Not About Heroes, also the title of one of Owen’s books, won a Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Festival in 1982 and has been adapted for Yorkshire TV and BBC Radio 4.

Director Caroline Clegg said: “As well as being a magnificent protest against the stupidity of war, the play has eloquence, wit and passion that separates the warrior from the war, showing us the man beneath.�

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