The Man who Tested Parachutes – Charles Agate and the development of Britain’s airborne forces for D-Day and Arnhem: FREE ILLUSTRATED TALK and BOOK LAUNCH
The Man who Tested Parachutes is published by international publishers Pen and Sword Books on March 31st 2025. Tatton Park is hosting a free illustrated talk and book launch in the Knutsford Room on Wednesday April 16th 2025 to mark the book’s publication and also to celebrate the remarkable life and unique wartime service at Tatton Park of Charles Agate AFC – the Man who Tested Parachutes.
Times:
From 2pm
Location:
The Knutsford Room, Tatton Park.
Tickets:
No pre-booking required. Standard Parkland Vehicle Entry fees apply. Pre-book online to save 10%
Book Parkland Entry
Charles Agate was a 34-year-old schoolteacher from Surrey with a taste for adventure when he joined a pioneering group of mavericks at RAF Ringway in Manchester. Their task? The Allies had fallen behind the Axis powers in parachute design and research and brave men were needed who would be prepared to risk their lives testing parachutes, jumping and landing techniques.
Between 1941 and 1946 Agate lived alone with his Alsatian dog in a small caravan underneath the trees in Tatton Park. In those 5 years he completed an astonishing 1601 jumps from planes and balloons, often from low altitude and using prototype parachutes and un-tried techniques. He jumped carrying heavy kit bags, had sandbags strapped to his legs, and landed in deep freezing water. He also had the sensitive task of placating Lord Edgerton of Tatton when his beloved park was frequently damaged by an army of troops, planes and gliders stationed there.
Agate was also a Parachute Jump Instructor (PJI) and he and his fellow PJIs trained thousands of raw recruits at Tatton Park for the key airborne operations of the war, as well as over 600 Special Operation Executive agents for dropping into enemy territory, frequently accompanying them as dispatchers on these hazardous flights. The breath-taking risks they took alongside the essential work of the women of the WAAF changed the course of the war and the face of airborne warfare.
What he described later as his ‘glamorous war’ came though at a terrible cost. Nearly 50 troops, most of them raw recruits and some on their very first jump, died at Tatton Park. Agate acknowledged after the war that he had personally seen ‘21 good soldiers hit the deck’. He had trained them, sent them out of the dreaded hatch or watched helpless from the ground as they fell.
The Man who Tested Parachutes tells Agate’s unique story in uncompromising detail including his ‘lost’ post-war years when he struggled with the heavy emotional toll of his service, the impact on his family, but also his journey to becoming the unconventional and charismatic head teacher of a village school and his last years running an ice cream parlour on Shoreham Beach.
The book tells the story of an ordinary man who took extraordinary risks, and the men and women who served alongside him. It also remembers the young recruits who died before they were able to take part in the key battles for which they were being trained. The book’s authors will be at the launch and will present an illustrated talk about Charles Agate. There will also be the opportunity to visit the vestiges of Agate’s wartime balloon station and to buy copies of the book signed by the authors.
