Hi everybody, welcome to Downs Knows History. This is an episode from our Batcattle, a classic

episode from the archive and it really is one of my favourite episodes I have ever, ever recorded.

On the 24th of July 2018, Mary Ellis died, age 101. Mary Ellis is one of Britain's most

remarkable aviators. She joined the Air Transport OXZR in 1941 and was part of a pool of women

that delivered aircraft to the battlefront to the factory for repairs, wherever and whenever

they were needed. It was a very dangerous job. She was expected to be current on lots and lots of

different aircraft types at the same time. She flew short-handed so without the usual crude,

it would for example fly a bomber and she did so brilliantly. She developed an extraordinary

reputation as an aviator. Over the course of the war, she flew a thousand planes of 76 different

types, hurricane Spitfires, Wellington bombers, etc. She flew them all over the UK, all sorts of

different conditions. Regularly she would land and an all-male team and R.E.F. Base simply did not

believe that she had piloted that flight. I met her in her home on the out of white. About a week

before she died, she was in very good health. It was a terrible surprise when she did pass away

and I'll never forget one particular moment when my three-year-old son had picked up a Spitfire toy

as he left our house. I just didn't even know he'd done that. It was in his pocket.

And he got this Spitfire out of his pocket at Mary Ellis's house and held it out.

And she said, oh, a Spitfire. And she leaned down and whispered in his ear and had a little

conversation. I didn't pick up what it was at the time. I think it was about her flying the Spitfire,

her memories of the aircraft. She told my little boy a little bit about it. And then she's

straightened up and continued the interview with me. And she died days later. And I often say to

my son now, what did Mary Ellis say to you? And he goes, I don't remember. I'm lucky for him.

age three, he had this extraordinary interaction with this national treasure. Days before her death,

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