In Search Of Hope is at the Royal British Legion, Bangor, on Friday, November 10 and the Village Hall, Ballywalter, on Saturday, November 11. The play runs from 7-9pm each night. Light refreshments will be served and there will be an optional discussion a

from the Troubles, this is one of the less often heard. This officer wasn’t “collateral damage”. He, like those of his colleagues dead and injured and their families, were “targeted”, in many cases followed, watched, stalked and then attacked.

The sense of fear which the real-life survivors have derives from that sense that what happened to them was indeed “personal” and might, at any moment, happen again. The feeling remains that someone will come to finish the job. The audience in Comber British Legion was rapt, reflective and appreciative of the nuanced and completely credible performances of Xander Duffy and Louise Parker as the officer “David” and his wife “Anne”. The absence of recrimination or bitterness or even understandable rage is down to Orr’s skilful stewardship of the story itself as well as the generosity of spirit shown by the recovering couple.

Both people are now active in their community. The metaphor of “reconstruction” is a good one. That this man and woman can find it in themselves to engage in the civic life of a community that tried to kill him is astonishing and a salutary lesson for all of who are onlookers on conflict and what it takes to make reconciliation happen.

This a story, difficult though it may be, which must be heard in schools and community halls far outside the safe zone of legion halls, right across our community.

It’s up to the rest of us to make that place of safety possible for the many people who have suffered as these two have.

GAIL WALKER