CREDITON Operatic and Dramatic Society (CODS)’s upcoming production of “The Men Who Marched Away” is to feature the real-life local story of nurse Edith Appleton.

Tickets are selling fast for the WW1-era show, which will be performed from Thursday, February 13 to Saturday, February 15 at Crediton Congregational Church.

Set in Crediton, or “Kirton” to use its old name, the play is described as a “commemoration in word and song of the people of Crediton during the Great War from 1914 to 1918”.

One such person was a nurse at the outbreak of the war.

“Meet Kirton’s very own compassionate and spirited district nurse Edith Appleton,” Tasha Currie of CODS said.

“Having worked as a nurse for six years, when Britain decided to join the war on August 4, 1914, within three weeks she had signed up as a Red Cross nurse having realised that there would soon be a pressing need for such experienced civilian nurses to work at the front line.

“On September 16, 1914, she travelled to Fort Pitt in Chatham to join Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve (QAIMNSR).

“Discover more of this truly courageous local heroine who was gazetted for the Royal Red Cross in 1918 and awarded a military OBE, and the horrors she documented in CODS’s passionate telling of “The Men Who Marched Away”.”

The show’s director is Paul Walker and musical director Allan Fouracre.

Tickets are priced at £12.50 with concessions £10 and are available from: codsonline.com, or the box office telephone line 07395 416063.

Flashing lights, images and loud noises will be part of the production.

The show had previously been due to be staged at Queen Elizabeth’s School’s Western Road campus from Wednesday, October 30 to Saturday, November 2, but was postponed.