Mary Ellis: Touching the Sky
Interviews
•
30m
During the years of World War Two, a short lived, but remarkable, organisation existed. The Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) was a civilian service that was tasked with the delivery of aircraft from factories to the squadrons of the RAF and Royal Navy, and the delivery of supplies. Featuring pilots exempt from wartime service due to health, age and – most commonly – gender, they gained a reputation for being able to take anything anywhere. One such pilot was Mary Ellis. A courageous and pioneering aviator, she blazed the way for women aviators in Britain with her passion for the skies and evident skill. She served with the ATA by flying aircraft - including spitfires - between airfields, enabling the RAF to maintain their defence against the Luftwaffe. In this extraordinary episode, she talks about her love of flying, which first developed when she was a child, and the incredible feats she undertook as a pilot. Mary Ellis passed away on 24 July 2018, aged 101 – just a short time after filming this interview.
Up Next in Interviews
-
Homo Erectus: Why did the Most Succes...
The Ancients host Tristan Hughes sits down with Professor John Mcnabb at the University of Southampton to discuss the extinct species of archaic human, Homo Erectus (aka the 'Upright Man') that existed about 2 million years ago.
Were these ancient ancestors the first to make stone tools? Were th...
-
Hitler: The Rise to Power
In the 1930s Germany, one of the World's richest, most technologically-developed and culturally-sophisticated countries, was transformed into an extreme authoritarian state under its dictator Adolf Hitler. His unbridled ambition would plunge the World into a war bloodier and more destructive than...
-
Who Owns History?
In the late 1960s, when many in the UK viewed colour television as tacky, art historian Kenneth Clarke was asked to produce a series all about Western Art. Clarke duly delivered on this assignment, creating the series ‘Civilisation’. At a time when there was a genuine belief that the world stood ...
