The Tin Hut Talks (at Shoreham Fort:

• Date & Time: Thursday, 16th October 2025 - 18:30 for a 19:00 start

• Venue: Shoreham Fort Nissen Hut

• Ticket Cost: £8.00

• Refreshments: Hot drink included

• Booking: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/tin-hut-talks-tickets-1250484044439

Shoreham Wordfest event:

When: Tuesday 30th September

Where: Ropetackle Arts Centre

Long Ago and Far Away: Rediscovered Memories of the Death Railway

Long Ago and Far Away is a gripping In-the-Dark soundscape by broadcast professionals Tom Cutler and Marianne Saabye, marking the 80th anniversary of the Japanese Surrender in September 1945. It is the uplifting story of Fergus Anckorn, an Artillery private, and conjuror, who, through a series of incredibly lucky escapes, survived years as a Japanese slave-labourer, building the bridge on the River Kwai. Specially recorded at his Hassocks home in 2009, Fergus recalls being nearly blown to pieces as the Japanese take Singapore and coming round in the Alexandra Hospital just before the bayonetting of patients in their beds. His ward’s sole survivor, he tells of the secretly-coded POW postcards he sent home to his family, his feelings as he faces a firing squad in the blazing jungle heat, and how – even with a mangled hand – magic tricks saved his bacon. He recalls the faces of the friends he buried in a monsoon, and, at his piano, plays the tune that on his post-war homecoming brought him to tears in a London restaurant.

One of the few who made it home to England. Fergus tells his astonishing and emotional stories as the sounds of the dripping jungle contrast with the swish of his remembered childhood woods. Specially composed music evokes the England of the forties, and the sounds of Old Japan. Finally, he tells us that though he has not forgotten, he has forgiven: learning Japanese and visiting Japan. It is as an old man, he says, standing among his beloved village trees, that he feels at last at home.

‘Amazing and engrossing.’ – Hugh Levinson, Commissioning Editor, BBC Radio 4.

Fergus died in 2018, aged 99, but after the half-hour soundscape event, his son Simon Anckorn will discuss his memories of his father and the Far East War, along with programme makers Tom Cutler and Marianne Saabye. This unmissable story simply must be heard.

To book tickets, https://www.shorehamwordfest.com/events/long-ago-and-far-away