The tale of a Blackburn boy’s poverty-stricken childhood is about to brought to life on stage for the first time. We meet the people behind The Road to Nab End – the play, running in Oldham from June 18 to July 10.

WILLIAM Woodruff’s novel The Road to Nab End became a surprise best seller, chronicling the life of William and his family during the downturn of the Lancashire cotton industry.

Now, a stage play will revisit the hardship and joys of growing up in Blackburn’s weaving community in the Great Depression, with scenes full of spirit, humour and sadness.

The production opens at Oldham Coliseum and features both a young William, as he is in the book, and an older William who also acts as a narrator for the production.

The world premiere will be attended by William’s widow Helga, who is set to fly in from her home in Florida, and 12 other members of his surviving family.

The play’s director, producer and designer recently visited Blackburn to be given a Nab End tour by well-known local historian Simon Entwistle, taking in many of the places described in the book.

Kevin Shaw, who is directing the play, said: “I was looking for a play that told the story of life around the mills and I remembered I had a copy of the book.

"Both Oldham and Blackburn share the same heritage. The mills are almost in the genes of both towns.

"William’s character descriptions are brilliant and as soon as I read it I knew it would make a fantastic stage play and translate so well on stage.

“Rehearsals are going well. With new work you’re never quite sure until you put it on its feet, but so far so good.

"Theatres should create new pieces of work and an adaptation of a popular book is a great way of doing it. Of course the biggest decisions are what you leave out, or you’d end up with a 15 hour play.”

The production includes eight actors playing 39 characters, led by Coliseum regular Kenneth Alan Taylor, who plays William as an older man, marking his 274th appearance at The Coliseum.

The novel The Road to Nab End and its sequel Return to Nab End, written when William was in his eighties, made the historian an overnight literary success.

From the grim conditions he endured as a child leaving school at 13 to become a grocery delivery boy, William went on to gain a place at Oxford.

He served with distinction during the Second World War before becoming a leading academic with professorships at top American universities, including Harvard and Princeton, and also in Australia.

He retired to Florida where he wrote his Nab End novels and died in 2008, aged 92.

Woodruff’s widow Helga has been helping out in the process of translating William’s memoirs to the stage show.

Philip Goulding adapted the book for the stage and is clearly taken with the tale.

He said: “William himself, as I understand it, was anxious his book wasn’t thought of as a ‘misery memoir’.

"He felt that, though it was a truthful book set during hard times, it also contained a lot of laughs.

“What I liked about the book were the relationships — Billy’s relationships with his mother and father, and with his friend Harold Watkins.

"And there are also the figures Billy comes into contact with who ‘educate’ him, or ‘enable’ him, in the way that school failed to do.

“His grandmother Bridget, his neighbour in Livingstone Road, Terence Peek — and later Peter Shad, who furthered Billy’s political education.

"Billy loved his parents and acknowledged that they taught him valuable ‘human’ lessons, but he was also fortunate to have encountered a series of people who recognised that he had ‘something about him’, and their counsel meant that he was able to see wider possibilities, options outside of a life in the mills.”

A large mill dominates the stage and rotating sets show interiors and exteriors of houses, based on those from the streets of Blackburn.

Several cotton bails are also used on stage as props.

Acapella songs underscore parts of the play, including a theme tune I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles for William’s mum, alongside other songs from the period and traditional folk songs about the cotton industry.

Philip Goulding has written over 30 stage plays, 13 of which were with the Coliseum’s director Kevin, but he revealed this production has been a particular highlight.

He added: “I’ve enjoyed it very much. So many great characters, of course; but also the detail of the period, the politics and, importantly, the humour.

"It was very important to us from the beginning that we honoured the spirit of the book.

“And the more I worked on William’s book, the more I appreciated his writing and admired him as a person. I hope he would have liked the production.”

* THE ROAD TO NAB END — Oldham Coliseum, June 18 to July 10. Tickets from the box office on 0161 624 2829.