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9a -The Stratford upon Avon Society and Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

Transcription of an interview that took place on the 5th February, 2005
Present:
Neville Usher
Ann Tallis
Adrian Tallis

Neville Usher: We are with Ann and Adrian Tallis, at 1, Moat Grange, Sherbourne, Warwick, and we are talking about The Dam Busters.
I wonder Ann if you would like to tell us a little bit about how you became interested.

Ann Tallis: I became interested because there was a plaque in Sherbourne Church commemorating one of the Dam Busters, a Squadron Leader Henry Maudslay and nobody seemed to know very much about him, and it made it very poignant to me because he was killed when he was 21, and our son died when he was 22 so I felt it was important to find out more information about Henry.
There was a flower festival at Sherbourne Church in 2003, so I thought it would be a good idea if we had a booklet to sell at the flower festival to raise funds for Sherbourne Church. And we found that Henry’s parents have a gravestone in Sherbourne Church, and then we subsequently found that his family lived in what must have been a beautiful Victorian house in Watery Lane, which is now a language school, but the person who really helped me was Jack Pratley from the Wellesbourne Air Museum. And it was like playing a game of chess really, because to find out information, first of all I asked the vicar, and he said well get in touch with the Air Crew Association, there’s a man living in Barford, so I phoned him and he said well, it might be an idea to contact Mr. Pratley which I did, and he came with his …, piles of files, and he had a file on Henry Maudslay, and the information he’d got was from the 617 Squadron historian, and that was where, you know, the information started from.
And in the Sherbourne churchyard, there was also a plaque commemorating Henry’s sister, who died in Scotland - her ashes were scattered in Scotland, and I thought well, as I am compiling a booklet about Henry it seems courteous to contact the family as I am writing about one of their members, and we went and had a look in the local phone book; my husband was you know a great support because at first he thought it was …, he said I was becoming obsessive about this. I said I do know, I do feel it’s important that more people should know about Henry, so we went to Warwick Library and in the phone book for Scotland we found the name Mrs. Parrot, and Mr. Pratley from the Wellesbourne Museum said that he’d contacted her via the 617 Squadron, so I rang her out of the blue and said was she related to Henry and she said yes, and then we had a nice chat and she was very interested to hear about the booklet.
So I contacted Mr. Pratley again and he said well, you’re very welcome to use any information in the file that I have.
And then we were shopping in Stratford, and we saw this book called 'The Dam Busters', and it was a beautiful book, and it was the first time I had seen a picture, a photograph of Henry Maudsley, and my husband thought oh, for goodness sake, you know, she’s becoming obsessive about this. And it was an expensive book which I said well I will use the birthday money to buy this book. I then wrote to one of the authors of the book, and he eventually wrote back and said oh, any information that’s in the book you are very welcome to use it because I think you know it’s important that Henry should be remembered.
So I contacted a lady in Sherbourne village who is one of the elderly residents, and she said that she remembered picking flowers with Henry and his sister and their nanny, and at that time obviously Sherbourne was very different from what it is now because there were fields and wild flowers where children could go, you know and pick them, but she didn’t really have much information about the family.
But it subsequently transpired that Henry’s family had connexions with the Maudslay Motor Company in Birmingham, and his father’s cousin had started The Standard Motor Company. And then of course we found that Henry had been to Eton and he was a member of Pop, which is like principally to be a member of Pop you have to be elected by your contemporaries, so obviously Henry was quite a popular boy.
We then went to Willersey to photograph the war memorial there, because that’s another place where Henry’s commemorated, and we found one of the church wardens who was very interested, because they hadn’t much information about Henry and then he said, oh I remember when the Maudslay’s moved from Sherbourne to Willersey, and how Mrs. Maudslay used to take their little dog for a walk, and he said I remember Henry cycling down steep hills with his feet on the handlebars, because obviously you know he was a bit of a dare devil.
And then the author of the definitive history of the Dam Busters invited my husband and I to go on a trip to Germany to see the crash sites, and also to visit the crash site of where Henry’s plane came down, which was on the German/Dutch border. The plane had been damaged and then Henry was obviously trying to get home, but unfortunately he was caught up by the flak.
And it was very moving, when we went to visit the crash site and I felt very privileged that you know I was given a cross to place on the crash site and Chris Ward said, you know you are the first person to commemorate Henry on this spot. And the whole trip to Germany was very emotional, and we visited a German family who had had bad experiences of …, the father of the family, his parents, well his mother had been killed but they were very hospitable, and gave us coffee and his young daughter-in-law, when she was shaking hands as we were leaving, she said well we must make sure that this never happens again. And I am trying to think of anything else that’s relevant.
Adrian Tallis No I think that covers most of what we did on the Dam Buster Raid you know, but we also looked at the Emms Canal, the Emms/Dortmund Canal, which was a subsequent raid where 9 planes were involved in the particular raid over two nights. The first night they went out the raid was aborted, and Maltby who was the pilot that breeched the Mohne Dam, he …, when they aborted the trip, when turning at low level over the North Sea, touched his wingtip in the sea and cart wheeled into the sea and was killed, so he was killed without actually getting on the raid. The following night, Micky Martin who had been on the Dam Buster raid, he joined the flight and again 8 planes went out to Dortmund/Emms Canal, and they …, only about two of them hit the target, which didn’t do any damage, didn’t breach the canal and only 3 returned, all the others were killed, crashed. One of them was Les Knight - he crashed, he was the one who blew up the Eder Dam, and Les Knight’s plane, he managed to keep his plane in the air to allow all his crew to bale out except for himself, and to land the plane away from the village of Ham, and the villagers then erected a monument at the side of the road to him, in memory of his bravery in avoiding the town and avoiding killing any of their people, so we saw his crash site on the field, and the stone which is commemorating him, and also his grave in that particular cemetery where the locals maintain all these graves in such perfect condition, they look after them very well indeed, much better than graves in this country I am afraid.

Ann Tallis So looking at the booklet again and going back to what you said about the event, the knock on event of the Dam Busters Raid, I had forgotten all this information, but it says that it gave a real boost to civilian and service personnel in the dark days of 1943, which you know was important. And also I think one easily forgets that the 617 Squadron which was founded in a way, is still an operational squadron nowadays, and recently RAF jets of 617 Squadron pounded Iraqi defences with the latest precision weapons, and so you know it is an ongoing story really.
But another interesting point, the photograph which was in Chris Ward’s book, Henry Maudslay is in civilian dress, because apparently they had to carry a photograph of themselves in civilian clothes in case the plane crashed and they were able to, you know, escape more easily rather than, you know, having RAF uniform entirely, and I can’t think of anything else, Adrian, can you?

Adrian Tallis Not really, no.

Neville Usher It’s really nice that you have established a local connexion with this though, beginning with the plaque in the church.

Ann Tallis That was the starting point.

Adrian Tallis That was the starting point, and looking from here you can see the chimneys of the house that he lived in from our own dining room.

Ann Tallis And another interesting point was we went on holiday to Wales, and was it the Vyrnwy lakes we were looking at?

Adrian Tallis No, it was the Rhayader Lakes.

Ann Tallis Rhayader lakes, where the aeroplanes used to practise their low flying over water, and there were two young men there, bikers, very modern young men.

Adrian Tallis All in black leather?

Ann Tallis All in black leather, and I heard them chatting, this is where the Dam Busters used to train you see. So I said to them, oh excuse me I said, in our village that was where one of the Dam Busters used to live. Oh was it they said.

Adrian Tallis We were there for a half hour lecture!

Ann Tallis No, no, no I was just chatting, and my husband said there she is, off again, but I just felt that it was fascinating to find that two modern young men, still, you know, very interested in this story behind the Dam Busters.

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