In 1954, Richard Thorp was a young actor at the start of a career which would take him to the dizzy heights of playing the pub landlord in Emmerdale when he was offered the role of one of the pilots in The Dam Busters. Like many of the cast he bore a strong resemblance to the character he played, Sqn Ldr Henry Maudslay.
Mr Thorp has recently been involved in a campaign for a permanent memorial to the real life men of 617 Squadron at one of the dams they used for training – the Nant-y-Gro dam in mid Wales.
He told the Western Mail:
I loved filming Dam Busters. I was very proud to be in it. It made me realise how incredibly brave these young men were…The Lancaster bombers used to shake like jellies. I’ve been up in one and they are freezing cold with the wind rushing right through them…When we were making the film, three batty Polish pilots were the only ones brave enough to fly them.
Actually, he’s wrong about the last bit. Some Lancasters and their successors the Avro Lincoln aircraft were still in service with the RAF at the time, so there were a number of pilots available who were qualified to fly them. What they weren’t prepared for was the extremely low height at which they had to operate – very siimilar to that faced by their wartime colleagues. And in fact only two of the pilots were Polish – Joe Kmiecik and Ted Szuwalski. For the record, there were five in all and the others were Ken Souter, Dickie Lambert and Ted Quinney. (Information from Filming the Dam Busters, by Jonathan Falconer.)
I had the pleasure of flying with Ted Szuwalski in sycamore mk14 helicopters in 1960 Aden. He was ex-303 sqd continueing to fly as though still in a spitfire
Dickie Lambert was my boss when he was Station Adjutant at RAF Ternhill in 1957. He told me that he was pilot of the third plane at take-off. He showed me photographs which had beem give to him,of himself with some of the actors.
Watched Dam Busters at the weekend not realising Richard Thorp was in it and find out today he has passed. RIP Richard.