A ONE-woman play celebrating the life of Dame Agnes Hunt will be performed at the home she lived in during her retirement in Baschurch.

Alison Utting has given talks about Ellesmere’s Eglantyne Jebb, founder of Save The Children.

For future talks, Alison began researching the life of Agnes Hunt, founder of the Orthopaedic Hospital in Gobowen with Robert Jones, including her disability from childhood illness and her lifelong close friendship with Emily Selena Goodford.

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Alison has now been given permission to perform at Boreatton Park, her home both in childhood and in retirement but is now a youth activity centre, and is delighted to be able to tell ‘Aggie’s’ story.

She said: “As soon as I read her memoir ‘This is my Life’, I was hooked.

“Gone was the image of a stern-faced, intimidating matron as she sometimes appears in her photos.

“Instead, I discovered an incredibly brave, determined, warm, and funny personality.

“An illness in childhood left Agnes with crippling osteomyelitis of the hip, which was not very treatable in those days. Her nursing ambition very nearly went unfulfilled because she was repeatedly judged ‘too young, and much too crippled’ for the profession.

“I also found it striking that her most significant personal relationship was with a fellow nurse, Emily Selena Goodford, who helped her to set up the original Baschurch Home.

“They were a close partnership for 30 years and Agnes remembers her with love and admiration in her memoir.

“I am very careful to use Aggie’s own words when describing this relationship as it is up to the audience how they see it in modern terms.

“Whatever your view, it is unarguable that the two were immensely close and that Goody’s death in 1920 was a huge blow to Agnes. They are buried together at All Saints, Baschurch.”

Alison added that she used the memoir to write her script, permission courtesy of Derwen College, which Agnes also set up, and has used the memories of others to form her story.

She added: “I was talking to a gentleman aged 99, who remembers Dame Agnes from her retirement years at Boreatton Old Hall.

“He remembers a very swish car pulling up one day, and being told that the then Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, had come to visit her.

“I was very cheeky in approaching the PGL Centre at Boreatton Park to see whether I might perform ‘Aggie’ there, but they couldn’t have been more welcoming.

Alison will perform ‘Aggie’ at Boreatton Park PGL Centre, Baschurch on Saturday, February 3 at 2pm and 4pm (to include tour of house and grounds).

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She will also play Hope Church, Oswestry on Saturday, February 24 at 2pm.

For tickets, go to ticketsource.co.uk/a-shropshire-lass or phone 01691 622093 (advance booking recommended).

For details of how to book ‘Aggie’ and ‘Eglantyne & Ellesmere’ for your organisation or event, please visit ashropshirelass.com or find ‘A Shropshire Lass’ on Facebook.