Director Ruth Ahmed and the Tilbourne Players presented a sensitive and stunning realisation of Deborah Breevort’s play The Women of Lockerbie.

The set of draped muslin, wooden platforms, a limb of a petrified tree, creeping mist and low lighting completed the impressionist’s view of Lockerbie’s hills in winter.

Clare Young sang Bones In The Ocean, a song of death, loss and survivor’s guilt, accompanied by Matthew Wells on melodeon.

Seven years after Pan Am flight 103 was bombed over Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, a group of Lockerbie women - led by Olive (Sara Wilson-Soppitt) - wanted to help bring closure by washing the blood from the clothes of the dead before returning them to their families. The American authorities - encompassed in George Jones (Richard Ashton) - refused.

An American woman, Madeline (Sarah Burch), returned to search for anything of her son Adam. Husband Bill (Nigel Dams) came in hope of Madeline finding closure.

These actors knew the gravity of their task but there was respite as Lockerbie women June Hegarty, Kathy Le Fanu and Vivienne Raeside, in a Greek chorus, reported their crash experiences without emotion, simply and disciplined, aided by the gentle humour of Hattie (Caroline Thompson). As Olive said: “Hatred will not have the last word in Lockerbie.”

In the final scene, as the women unbagged and washed the clothes, I swear I saw the blood and smelled the burning. The cast repeated the haunting song in harmony. It was a fitting, memorable end to a wonderful performance.

Alan Goodchild