Close of Play

Harry Parker is a good man. He knows this because his best friend Walter tells him as much as they lie staring at the stars one autumnal evening in 1910.
But Harry struggles to reconcile Walter’s compliment with the world he sees; a world that leaves him feeling constantly uncomfortable and uncertain. A gentle, loyal and book-loving young man, Harry is bewildered by his enigmatic mother, left cold by his pious, hard-working father and in awe of the best friend that he feels unable to live up to or live without.
With his friends around him, Harry finds happiness in the simple things in life – sunshine, cricket and friendship – all of which are undermined when Walter meets Hattie and discovers there is more to life than boyhood games.
Just as it seems that Harry, Walter and the boys are destined for separate paths, so the clouds of war begin gathering over Europe and, like so many other young men across the country, they answer the call without a second thought.
Harry takes his many doubts with him across the sea to France, that land of creativity and mystery, to see if he can find amidst the chaos of war a life that he can call his own, a life he can recognise, a life more lived.
On the sharp sound of a whistle Harry leads his friends into history; a shared history, one that, come what may, they will have to write themselves.