Leaving Town

Leaving Town Treatment:

TOMMY DENHAM I s a poor boy from the East End of London. It is the beginning of the war in early 1940. Tommy lives with his abusive mother LILY. His father is an army medic and is fighting in the British Expeditionary force in France. Lily is unfaithful to her husband and is seeing RONALD, a local butcher; a place where Tommy is often asked to help out. Tommy is a bit of a tearaway and an attention seeker who gets into trouble regularly. He and his Jewish friend DANIEL are regularly bullied by another boy called TRUMAN and his friend BILLY. Following his involvement in an incident of throwing bleach that injures Billy, and a bombing raid, Tommy is finally evacuated to the countryside with the other boys.

Tommy travels to Thaxton, in Norfolk where LORD CUNNINGHAM is a landowner. The evacuees are parcelled out to Cunningham’s tenant farmers. Cunningham takes Truman and Billy to work on his estate. Tommy ends up living with a dream couple called Freddie and Molly and their daughter Jane. Freddie and Molly have lost their son in a tragic shooting accident.

At first, Tommy is very wary of them but is gradually won over and enjoys his new life. Jane does not accept him at first, particularly when Tommy shows a keen interest in her late brother’s horse, Rudolph. He also discovers he has real potential at school and really loves all the animals on the farm. Although he still misses his father he finally throws in his all with his new family and tries to forget the pain of his old life. This moment of acceptance coincides with the gift of his very own puppy, which he names PATCH.

Tommy gets involved in the life of this family but is unaware of the dangers. He has a boyish fascination with outdoor life and witnesses some shooting practice organised by Lord Cunningham. When he returns with Freddie, he sees him lock up his guns in a large shed. His persistence in wishing to ride Rudolph finally pays off and Jane accepts him as a potential step-brother. She signifies this by taking Tommy to her secret place – a cave only she and her dead brother knew about.

Tommy gets sucked into the life of this village and commits himself enthusiastically to everything that is going on. He joins the local youth corps run by Cunningham and his estate servants and ends up playing orienteering games that have a distinct military feel to them. He is disturbed however by the deliberate exclusion of his Jewish friend Daniel by the corps leaders. Tommy manages to win the prize for his team and Truman loses it to the chagrin of his leader, MERVIN – one of the estate servants. As a result, Mervin sets out to deal with Truman who he finds arrogant and disobedient.

When Tommy is finally visited by his mother, he now finds her presence embarrassing and difficult. However, her news of the death of his father on active service abruptly interrupts his new-found happiness. His mother also tells him before she leaves that she had sent his father’s letters to him. As Tommy has never received them, he has his first doubts about Molly and Freddie.

Tommy searches for the missing letters of his father and finds them hidden in a drawer. He is deeply disturbed and feels betrayed by Molly and Freddie. He does not know what to do. He begins to put his experiences together and realises things are not as they seem. There are many unanswered questions.

Tommy leaves the house with Jane and on their way to meet Molly and Freddie they witness the shooting down of a German plane. Tommy and Jane discover a dead German officer who has parachuted from the plane. He carries what appear to be invasion plans in a leather case. Tommy decides to hide them. Meanwhile Truman, after being beaten for insubordination by Mervin – one of the estate servants, runs away. Truman also sees the plane crash somewhere in the forest and eventually finds a severely injured pilot near the wreckage. Tommy and Jane arrive at the site of the wreckage to find Truman toying with the gun he has taken from the pilot. During an altercation with Truman, Jane is accidentally shot.

Jane is taken to the hospital and Tommy gets the blame as Truman lies about him to Lord Cunningham. When Freddie and Molly arrive at the hospital they are distraught, as Jane’s life hangs in the balance. As Tommy is pressed for information and feels he is not being believed, he finally accuses Molly and Freddie of taking his father’s letters. Molly decides to stay at the hospital with Jane.

As Tommy returns home with Freddie, he starts to put two and two together and realises the plans are important. Tommy escapes the house in the middle of the night, steals the keys to the gun shed, and finds it is packed full of weapons, ammunition and fascist literature about the Nazi leader ADRIAN CHAMLIER who is about to visit Thaxton. He takes Rudolph, his horse and rides to the town and finds the secret Nazi rally in progress. When he goes to the police, he realises they are in on the conspiracy. Tommy is forced to run away to a hiding place as he now knows he is being hunted by Lord Cunningham.

Cunningham leads a search party for Tommy and captures him trying to retrieve the plans he has hidden. Tommy is taken back to the Cunningham estate and finds himself in the midst of the fascist black-shirts making final preparations for a German invasion. He is bound and taken to a room to be guarded by Truman. A submarine lands a senior SS officer, to direct operations. Tommy makes a daring escape in an attempt to warn the authorities. After riding through the night Tommy manages to find an army unit. The unit alerts other units and they close in on the mansion. When Freddie arrives at the mansion to join Cunningham, Tommy agonises but decides not to give him away to the army as a collaborator.

There is a vicious firefight in which Tommy plays a vital part. Tommy snatches up a gun from a fallen officer and in the final part of the battle rides his horse at the SS Officer and corners him. Tommy trains the gun on the SS Officer. Cunningham threatens to shoot Tommy’s horse if he does not back off. After a tense stand-off Cunningham fires and brings down the horse. Tommy fires back killing Cunningham. This is a terrible moment for Tommy as his horse Rudolph dies.

After extensive questioning, Tommy decides not to give Molly and Freddie away but has to return to their house to collect his things. There is a painful goodbye as Molly finds it impossible to accept Tommy is leaving. Tommy visits Jane in the hospital for the last time and says a painful farewell. He returns to live in London. Ronald, whose butcher’s shop has been destroyed by the bombing has been replaced by an American GI at home, but things are much the same with respect to his mother. However, Tommy has changed and will stand up to her.

The year 2000.

An old man in Australia receives an invitation to a reunion. We realise it is Tommy, who had emigrated many years before. Tommy returns to England for the reunion to the same station he left from, as an evacuee 60 years earlier.

The reunion on the station has the train, bands and feel of 1940. There is an emotional meeting with Jane who never married. She tells him Molly has recently died of cancer and Freddie finds it too painful to come. Jane tells Tommy that Molly never forgot him and was very much hoping to come. It was what kept her alive for so long. We discover Tommy’s wife has died too and his children are now grown up. He trained as a doctor after the traumatic events of his childhood. There are many regrets and unfulfilled dreams of a potentially different life. Tommy and Jane part but promise to keep in touch. There is a note of hope in their meeting that leaves us feeling this is not the end.