Ten years ago, soldier Matthew Midgley found himself in the desert waiting to go to war. He tells Steve Pratt how the experience influenced him to write a play about soldiers in Iraq

WHEN he left school at 16 and joined the Army, Matthew Midgley was sure there wasn’t going to be another war. “The Falklands were winding up and there didn’t seem to be anything on the horizon.

And then September 11 happened and suddenly the world was shaken up quite considerably,”

he says.

Three years later he found himself in the Kuwait desert as part of the Royal Signals 7th Armoured Brigade, along with thousands of other troops waiting while the heated political debate raged about going to war with Iraq.

As the tenth anniversary of the Iraq War is marked this week, a play written by 30-year-old Midgley, now a student in York, premieres as part of the TakeOver 2013 festival, in which a team of 11 to 25-year-olds takes over the programming of the theatre for a season.

Quicksand is set in the desert as a group of soldiers wait to find out if they are going to war.

Obviously, parallels between events in the play and what happened to him will be made.

“You’ve got the fictional narrative – quite comedic really – of the soldiers in the desert, and then in among that, framing it if you like, is verbatim material from the time,” he says.

“So you’re locating the experience they’re having very precisely in time. The contradictions of what’s happening speak for themselves, really. The characters don’t have much perspective on the situation.”

Midgley, who grew up in Bradford, joined the Army at 16. He served in the Royal Signals for seven years in Germany, Iraq and Northern Ireland, and his final posting was at the York barracks.

He left the Army at 23 to study.

“I moved a very short distance from the barracks in Fulford Road to the university, and have been there ever since one way or another.

At the moment I’m doing a doctorate.”

The play is the third he’s written, but the first to be produced. Director Ruby Clarke, who was on the same MA course in York, was looking for a play to produce for TakeOver and the timing with the anniversary of the war – today’s opening comes on the day war broke out a decade ago – made it more relevant.

“The play is quite accurate in that it was quite tedious waiting in the desert to see if you’re going to war, and there was a lot of uncertainty which is worse than the actual war in a sense,” says Midgley, who was part of a communication headquarters.

“People started talking about the possibility of war at the end of the summer of 2002. I remember some of the sergeants saying we’re going to Iraq soon. I was very sceptical, I thought surely not. But obviously they had a better awareness than I did. I was only 19 at the time.

“It was just very surreal, really, waiting in the desert. Slowly but steadily we became ready. Things were getting tightened up. We sat in our vehicles for a few days, lined up ready to go.

The Northern Echo: Matthew Midgley, who has written a play about the Iraq War
Matthew Midgley, who has written a play about the Iraq War

“Actually, going over the border I was in the back of an armoured vehicle, so I saw nothing for the first part of the journey. Then suddenly I got out of the back and there we were in the middle of nowhere, no one was really sure what we were supposed to be doing.

“Then you can see the bombardment. You can hear the big guns. And you know you’re at war then.”

WHEN he signed up at 16, seeing action was a theoretical possibility. “You don’t really think through what actually might be,” he says. “They always say soldiers know what they’re signing up for, but they don’t, you really don’t – until you experience it, you’ll never know.”

For him, the Iraq war was notable in terms of action for the lack of it.

“By any measure and predictions, the war went very smoothly. The Iraqis were defeated quite quickly. We moved up and within a couple of weeks and were occupying Saddam’s palace in Basra.

“At that time we went into our shift pattern, so we were looking after the radios at headquarters, doing guard duties. But it was before things became very dangerous. I think on the day before we left was when the six military policemen were attacked. It was a very nervous ride to the airport.

“We’d be standing outside Basra palace, not much security really, just a couple of guys, locals mingling quite close. Very exposed really, when you look back. So I’m relieved to have left when I did.”

GIVEN the controversy surrounding the war, his play can’t help but be political.

There is a point of view, he says, but prefers for the audience to draw their own conclusions.

“The play addresses the political process leading up to the war which, on the face of it, was democratically done. We learnt a few things afterwards that might put that in doubt.

“But there’s the fact that this thing did happen with such opposition and I’ve seen it in decisions made since, like the bank bailouts, which were hugely unpopular and there was a lot of opposition.

“The play is looking at our democracy in general, not just as it pertains to Iraq.”

So would he advise anyone to follow his example and go into the Army at 16? “No, I think that will become apparent in the play,” he says.

“I’ve got a friend who’s in Afghanistan at the moment and the only reason he’s not been made redundant is because there was an uproar when they were going to sack people who were on tour.

“It’s betrayal really. These men and women have had a very tough decade and a lot of them have been let go. It’s not good.”

􀁧 Quicksand is at Bar Lane Studios, York, until Saturday. Box office 01904-623568. For further information, visit takeoverfestival.co.uk or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk