Sue Elliott - I Heard My Country Calling: Elaine Madden, SOE Agent

I heard my country calling, away across the sea,

Across the waste of waters she calls and calls to me.

Her sword is girded by her side, her helmet on her head,

And round her feet are lying the dying and the dead.

I hear the noise of battle, the thunder of her guns,

I haste to thee my mother, a son among thy sons.

The little-known middle verse of the popular patriotic hymn, I Vow to Thee, My Country, lyrics by Cecil Spring-Rice, music by Gustav Holst (taken from Jupiter from The Planets Suite ).

My biggest debt of gratitude is to Steve Humphries of Testimony Films, who first told me about the amazing woman hed just interviewed in the south of France. Steve shared hours of untransmitted interview material with me as well as supplying vital encouragement. His assistant producer, Lizi Cosslett, gave unstinting help on photos and much else. Jimmy Fox in Paris organised the British Memorial School reunion in 2001, was my co-author for The Children Who Fought Hitler that first featured Elaine and provided the initial background on her that started this long journey.

I am most grateful to Neville Madden and Danny Colgan in Australia and Patricia Anderson in Canada who provided invaluable information about the Maddens in general and Larry Madden in particular, including his First World War military records. Neville also gave me access to numerous family photographs and I am particularly grateful for his permission for their use. On the Duponselle side of the family, Mary Francombe, Elaines cousin (though they never met) and daughter of her Aunt Josephine, helpfully answered my many queries.

Kennith Schrijvers and Christine Locke willingly and efficiently translated (respectively) Flemish and French documents and other material for me, and my field trip to Brussels would have been far less productive without the on-the-ground help and hospitality of Virginia Lee. She walked the length of Avenue Louise in drenching rain with me without complaint and solved the mystery location of the liberation day tank incident. I am also grateful to the helpful staff of the Archives de lEtat in Brussels, and to Dominiek Dendooven of the In Flanders Fields Museum, Ieper, for supplying photos and information about pre-war Ypres.

In the UK Brian Bloice and John Brown, via the Streatham Society, provided information about St Helens School and Streatham in the early war period. Rebecca Haslam, Administrator of the Guild Church of St Dunstan-in-the West, Fleet Street was most helpful and, needless to say, the wonderful National Archives at Kew kept me engaged for hours poring over their collection of wartime files, some of them only recently released to public view.

I acknowledge with thanks the work of Kate Vigars in her fascinating PhD thesis about the women of F Section, which provided useful information about the selection and training of women agents. At the Carpetbaggers Museum at RAF Harrington, Id like to thank Roy Tebbutt for unearthing the names of the Liberator crew who flew Elaine out on her SOE mission, and Jedburgh expert Clive Bassett who supplied other useful background on Special Forces. Les Hughes, who seems to know more about the Special Allied Airborne Reconnaissance Force than anyone else, was most helpful, and Norman Brown of the Royal Pioneer Corps Association helped me interpret Larry Maddens Second World War service record.

Andrew Duncan, the journalist who turned up in his sports car to interview Elaine for Radio Times in 2009 and who she was so taken with, generously gave me access to his original notes, which provided many insights into her post-war life and state of mind. Jane Lomas, fellow Guardian Masterclass student, was a conscientious and helpful reader and Martin Mortimore provided valuable technological assistance at the beginning and end of this long project. My Brentham friends Rosanna, Nita and Ann lived through every stage of it with me on our early morning walks and were never less than interested and supportive.

Finally Id like to thank my agent, Jane Turnbull, for suggesting the idea in the first place and for keeping faith in it and me on what has been a sometimes bumpy road. And my partner, companion and driver along the way, Bevan Jones.

Sue Elliott

M any accounts of exceptional bravery start with a claim: This is a true story. Some are truer than others. The reader is entitled to know what kind of truth the author is after. A true-to-the-facts catalogue of who, what, when, where and how? A cracking tale based on real-life events where drama takes precedence over factual fidelity? Or perhaps a dramatised reconstruction, the literary form of the television drama-documentary, with some imagined scenes and invented characters that nevertheless aims to uncover a greater truth?

I first learned about Elaine Madden in 2008 while researching a book and BBC documentary about the children of the British Memorial School in Ypres and their bravery in the 193945 war. Hers was just one among many accounts of courage but even then it stood out as deserving more than a bit-part, albeit a striking one, in a much wider-ranging history. There was never any doubt that her story was exceptional; my challenge five years on was to find the fullest and most truthful way to tell it, given that in the intervening period my subject had died and there was no scope for further interrogation or elucidation.

On some periods of her life I had a great deal of detail, on others I had virtually none. Research took me only part of the way; to fill some gaps I had to imagine what might have happened, what might have been said, given the available information. The assurance that I can give is that every significant event, conversation and detail in this book can be substantiated by Elaines own testimony over extensive interviews with me and with others, and by documentary evidence including Special Operations Executive files, military records, family letters and photographs. Where conjecture was necessary to maintain the narrative, for example where characters exchange dialogue, I aimed to stay true to the available evidence. Quotes in italics are taken from surviving documents and interview transcripts.

Elaines recall was remarkably good; she made few errors of memory. Where, rarely, she couldnt remember (or didnt mention) a name I have had to invent one. Her first fianc, Luc, existed but I never knew his real name. Some incidental characters are also inventions, although every principal actor in Elaines unfolding story existed, their characters and motivations based on what she told me and what I have independently discovered from contemporary documents and other sources.

By the time I met her in 2008 Elaine was recounting, late in life, her childhood and wartime experiences in detail for the first time. This brought her joyful reunions with childhood friends but also painful memories of long-suppressed horrors. Even in old age she was a striking character: elegant, straightforward, absolutely credible, with more than the occasional glimpse of the attractive and committed young woman who did extraordinary things in dangerous times. It was a privilege to have known her, and now to be able to tell her story in full for the first time.

Sue Elliott

London, 2015

T heres something not right about this town. More than just quiet or unfriendly, theres a darkness, a corruption here. Even in the penetrating Provenal sunshine when the wide Rhne sparkles and the ancient bridge brings tourists on their way south to the coast, nothing lightens its atmosphere or exposes its secrets to daylight.