Monthly Archives: October 2025

Japan Chapter 6.2: Finale…

Posted on by
5

Wakeful, during my second night in Hiroshima, I recall more poignant details I learned in the last couple of days from Toshiko Tanaka, atomic-bomb survivor.  When she gave birth to her first daughter, Reiko, Toshiko’s husband arrived at the hospital looking pale and worried.  He counted Reiko’s fingers and toes and when he found that she was born without physical defects he said, ‘Thank you!’  Toshiko realised that, out of love, her husband had never said anything, but had always been secretly concerned about the possible after-effects of the atomic bombing.  In my play, Shigeko, suffering from radiation sickness, seriously contemplates whether she should have children, in case they too, like her, will have been ‘contaminated’ by the bomb.  The atomic bomb not only wreaked havoc on this two fateful days, August 6th and 9th, but spread its sinister tentacles down the generations. 

Eventually, day breaks and I realise it’s October 1st – a new month.  We now have only three more days in Japan.

Continue reading →

Japan Chapter 6.1: Hiroshima… Meetings with Atomic-Bomb Survivors

Posted on by
1

Saturday afternoon, October 4th, we take off from Hiroshima Airport to begin the long journey home.  What a week it’s been – this final week of our Japanese tour.

In Tottori City on Monday morning, after our two performances at Bird Theatre Festival, we are undecided how to get to Hiroshima with all of our baggage.  Six large suitcases, a number of smaller cases, and not forgetting the tatami mat used in the play as well.  

There’s a cheap bus all the way to Hiroshima, which is a very tempting option – until we discover that the bus-stop is fifty miles away.  The bullet-train beckons, but that would involve a change of trains and then hunting down at least two taxis at Hiroshima Station.  So the best option seems to be a minibus and driver – taking us from hotel door to hotel door – but this will cost a cool £500.  

I don’t even hesitate.  ‘Let’s do it – it will relieve us of so much stress.’  There have been savings in other parts of the budget so I feeI I can justify this expense.

From hotel door to hotel door; from cramped submarine-sized ‘cabin’ to stylish spacious apartment with all mod-cons – located right on Hiroshima’s Peace Boulevard.  After five nights cooped up like a budgerigar in my birdcage of a room in Tottori, at last – enough room in which to stretch out, walk about, dance around, open up my suitcases, spread all my clothes and papers about.  Room in which to think and reflect.

I feel many emotions coursing through me as the minibus draws ever nearer to the city which has taken up so much of my thinking, my feeling, my creativity, these last few years.  

Shortly after arriving, we meet up with Junko, our second wonderful Japanese collaborator for this tour, then head to the home of Toshiko Tanaka.  She is the gently inspiring 86-year-old atomic bomb survivor who I met and befriended in London last year – and who at that time invited Riko and myself to her home in Hiroshima should we ever get here. 

She’s waiting on the doorstep and when she recognizes me her face cracks open into a huge grin, a heart-melting beaming smile, as she takes my hand and says, ‘This is like a dream – a dream come true!’ 

Continue reading →