Next year will be a year of reckoning. We will be commemorating the start of World War I, marking the centenary of Dylan Thomas's birth and, equally significantly, celebrating Pembroke Dock's bicentenary.

In 1814, work began on transforming the South Bank of the Cleddau into the naval dockyard and town of Pembroke Dock.

On Wednesday and Thursday last week, pupils from Pennar Community School began their preparations for the town's 200th birthday, developing plays exploring the history of Pembroke Dock. These will be performed by all Pembroke Dock's junior schools at a special event during the celebrations next year.The workshops have been funded by the Pembroke Dock Bicentenary Group who are co-ordinating events for next year's 200th anniversary.

"Pembroke Dock's history is all about creativity and thinking outside the box," said writer Dan Anthony, who is facilitating the workshops.

"The biggest and best ships of the line were built here, the first steam powered battleships were developed here, the first iron-clads, the first dreadnoughts, the first submarines were all conceived or constructed by a can-do workforce with a truly global creative vision in the dockyard."

Last week, children from Mrs. James's, Mrs. Thomas's and Mrs. Butland's Year 5 and 6 classes at Pennar Community School developed two scripts: 'The Flying Porcupine' describes the true story of the flight of a Short Sunderland from Pembroke Dock into the teeth of an eight-plane dogfight over the Atlantic; 'The Pembroke Dock Votes For Women Club' was inspired by an archive photograph of the Pembroke Dock suffragettes and focused on the lives of women in a dynamic Edwardian town embracing the future.

"The Dock story is exciting and unique," said Dan. "Young writers will discover that the Dock's past and its future depend on a willingness to take on new challenges and build with creative confidence. For me, the bicentenary of Pembroke Dock is all about showcasing the town's legacy of invention and saying that the future of this town, of the economy in general, depends on our spirit of invention right now."