We have rellies in Ripley, so today's was far from our first visit to this pleasant, friendly little Derbyshire town.

But I suppose your experience of a place builds up in layers, and each time you go, things fit together better.


So now we know, for example, that "Outram Street" is a hat-tip to Benjamin Outram, who co-engineered the Cromford Canal.

And having arrived in England this year not long before the 100th birthday of George "Johnny" Johnston -- the last British survivor of the team that carried out the daring raids on four dams in the Ruhr Valley in 1943 -- we were a bit more clued in to the work of Barnes Wallis. (Before we move on to Wallis, be it noted that Johnson has plenty of Midlands cred, too. He was born in Lincolnshire, was based during WWII at Scampton, and after the war worked as a teacher right here in Newark, Notts.)

Wallis was born in Ripley in 1887 (in the house pictured at the top of the post), and although the family moved away when he was still quite young, he remains a local talking-point and object of pride. He is best known for designing the "bouncing bombs" used by the dam-busters.


It's a gut-wrenching story. The attacking squadron was led by Wing Commander Guy Gibson. Just 24 years old... And the operation was deadly on many levels: "Of the 133 aircrew that took part, 53 men were killed and three became prisoners of war. On the ground, almost 1,300 people were killed in the resulting flooding. Although the impact on industrial production was limited, the raid gave a significant morale boost to the people of Britain."

Further elaboration on this rather sober assessment can be found in an account by Richard Morris:

Even today, he writes, there is no certainty about the number of humans who perished, not to mention the thousands of livestock casualties. And the raid "did not bring about the long-term crisis for which planners in the Air Ministry and Ministry of Economic Warfare had hoped". But the press hyped the event in the immediate aftermath, and "as time passed, wishful thinking about its effects increased".

Then came the 1955 film The Dam Busters, by Michael Anderson, in which Michael Redgrave starred as Barnes Wallis. It was not entirely accurate: "Redgrave spoke words written by RC Sherriff, whose screenplay depicted Wallis as meek yet determined, neither downcast by snags and disappointments nor resentful of others’ scepticism. The souvenir programme for the premiere said that although experts had 'scoffed' at his ideas, Wallis’s faith had 'never wavered' as he tramped from one government department to another seeking support for his 'impossible' brainchild. In fact, while Wallis’s projects often met opposition -- and the bouncing bomb was no exception -- it has long been realised that the weapon could not have emerged without substantial official backing. It is also clear that far from being unwavering during preparations for the attack, Wallis was wracked with worry. The film’s version of events nonetheless endures and, with it, a narrative of daring imagination versus dull officialdom leading to an outstanding feat of arms that has gripped the nation ever since."

Be that as it may, the Wallis family's is not the only attractive red-brick house in Ripley:


Ripley Greenway, created on land vacated by the demise of the colliery and the associated branch railway, is a pleasant, nature-filled corridor about two miles long. We've popped in and out a couple of times.

Many decades ago, I joined up with a group that was walking the Ridgeway (an ancient and beautiful route that runs for 87 miles from Avebury to Ivinghoe Beacon). Such groups always spontaneously divide into sub-groups of people who walk at similar speeds, and in my sub-group were two coal-miners from Derbyshire who turned out to be great company. I wonder what happened to them... Because the Derbyshire coal-mining industry is now a thing of the past... (POSTSCRIPT 7 January: While I was writing about Silverhill, I started to wonder whether I'd misremembered, and whether my erstwhile walking companions were Nottinghamshire miners... Guys, if you end up reading this -- and stranger things have happened -- get in touch... We're talking about the mid-1980s; our transport was organized by a guy called Bob; and our little group called itself the A-team...)

We don't mourn coal's decline, of course. It was a dirty and dangerous industry. But you really feel for the communities that don't seem to have been given much help to transition.


I'm looking forward to returning to Ripley, and finding more pieces of the jigsaw.