However, he later broke off their engagement after witnessing the "true nature" of Hitler's regime on Kristallnacht - or the Night of Broken Glass. Like his comrade and SAS co-founder David Stirling, Lewes found his time in the Commandos frustrating. It won seven Olivier Awards in 2013 (including Best New Play), at the time equaling the record with Matilda the Musical in 2012, before both were surpassed by Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in 2017 with nine awards.

She met him through her cousin, Sir Alfred Fripp, surgeon to the King, who recommended Simson to her. In the Springtime of the Year by Susan Hill: the best book about grief that I have read, or can imagine reading. Eager for action, Lewes was quick to join the Commandos, a new unit which specialised in amphibious assault. Following the success of the Melbourne run, the same production began a national tour of Australia detailed below. He is the eponym of the Lewes bomb and was a founder member and principal training officer of the Special Air Service.

He was buried on the site where the attack happened but the whereabouts of his grave are now unknown. She married the royal obstetrician Sir Henry John Forbes Simson in 1908, who had the claim to fame of delivering both the future Queen Elizabeth II and her sister Princess Margaret. While sceptical about Stirling’s character and commitment, Lewes was eventually won over and became the unit’s training officer. Their developing love affair is chronicled in an affecting narrative that reaches a tragic conclusion when Jock is killed in action on 30th December 1941.

In World War II, part of Eynsham Hall was used as a maternity ward for expectant mothers evacuated from London. These letters were sent between Mirren Barford, studying at Somerville College in Oxford, and Lieutenant John Lewes, also known as Jock, who was away fighting. It is for a lover of life, and its purpose is to try and present another life as worthy of that love. We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and improve our understanding of you.Gavin Mortimer wrote that the "main problem with Rogue Heroes is that it is true to David Stirling's version of how the SAS was born.

The play is a National Theatre Production, in association with Frantic Assembly, who specialised in the movement direction. Lieutenant John Steel Lewes, known as Jock (21 December 1913 – 31 December 1941) was born in Calcutta but grew up in Australia and served as a British officer of the Welsh Guards in World War II.After falling in love with Adriano, he became engaged to the society beauty and attended a ball with her in 1938. In the hands of the SAS the Lewes bomb was an effective weapon against parked aircraft; following an attack in December 1941, an assessment was carried out by a group of Italian engineers on some unexploded bombs found on aircraft at their airfield.

All this changed in November 1938 when the vicious pogrom against the Jews, known as 'Kristallnacht', revealed to Lewes the true nature of the Nazis.

And yet the publication of our correspondence is unthinkable, for it is so essentially private to us as almost to be written in code undecipherable to others. Lewes was raised in Australia, where he enjoyed a rugged outdoor lifestyle, playing a range of sports and excelling particularly at rowing. After he graduated, he transferred to a Territorial Army unit, 1st Battalion, the Tower Hamlets Rifles, Rifle Brigade before joining the Welsh Guards in 1940.