Tagged: madoc roberts

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AmeriCymru:  Who were the Tunnelrunners? How was the band formed and What was your role in it?

Madoc: The Tunnelrunners were a punk band formed in Neath around 1977. We played around the Swansea area for a few years made a record and then split up when we went to college. What we didn’t know is that after splitting up we had a career which involved several bootlegs and our records selling for as much as $1,000.

Our gigs were very rare because there weren’t many places to play and our drummer Jeff Burton only had a small van. We used to have to pay him for petrol with our pocket money, that is how young we were. There were three of us in the band. Graham Jones who played guitar, Jeff Burton who played drums and myself, Madoc Roberts. I was the main singer and played guitar. Graham and I wrote the songs. It was a great laugh with lots of late night practicing and funny gigs.

The name came whilst we were watching Magpie a children’s television programme. The presenter forgot the name of a small mammal that was featured in an item and kept calling them tunnelrunners we thought this was hysterical and chose it for our name.

Our first gig was at Circles club in Swansea which was notorious for its sticky floor. Many famous bands played there and legend has it that the Sex Pistols played a gig there. On the night of our first gig our drummer pulled out and in true punk spirit someone else stepped in. However he didn’t know the songs and the sound hadn’t been set up properly. We were dreadful and an older man at the bar started booing. By the end of the set he had given up booing and was pleading with us to get off the stage as we were ruining his night.

After that the gigs improved and we built up a bit of a reputation. Then one night we were approached by Steve Mitchell who was a radio dj with Swansea Sound. He had started his own record label called Sonic International and asked us if we wanted to make a record.

We turned up at the studio to find an old sound engineer who wasn’t used to punk bands. He spent hours trying to make us sound like a “proper” band and then played it back. He made us sound clean and horrible so we told him just to mike up the amps and we would play the songs as live. We wizzed through our set in about twenty minutes (some of our songs lasted less than a minute!) We told him not to worry about the mistakes and left. From that session came our Plastic Land EP. There weren’t many copies made so it was quite rare and in recent years it has become very collectible. There were another five songs recorded at that session that were later released as the 100mph ep. We knew nothing about this as our manager has lost contact with us. We never even got a copy. Sonic International later developed into Fierce recordings which had bands like the Pooh Sticks. They also released stuff by Ian Brown, Patti Smith and even Charles Manson!

Without us knowing our record became quite sought after and appeared on several bootlegs. When I finally got the internet I was amazed to find all this interest in the Tunnelrunners had been going on without us knowing. One of our records was even sold in an ebay auction for $1,000. So in our absence we had done quite well!

Every now and then I am contacted by someone who wants to do an interview or re-release our music. A few years ago it was Sing Sing records from New York who re- released Plastic Land and this year I was approached by Stephen “Haggis” Harris of Punk House records. Stephen lives in New York but is originally from Swansea. As a youngster he sneaked into our gigs (he was only fourteen at the time). He later went on to have a glittering career as a musician, playing bass for Guns and Roses and forming Zodiac Mind Warp and the Love Reaction. He thinks that the Swansea Punk scene had something special and wants to make a record of the bands. His record label, Punk House are re-releasing stuff by Swansea bands from that era and it is good stuff. They have already released our 100mph ep which sold very quickly and they are going to a second pressing. They are re-issuing Plastic Land around June 10th. They make the records interesting by adding memorabilia from the time.

http://punkhouserecordshop.com/

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AmeriCymru:  How would you describe the early punk scene in Swansea and in the UK generally?

Madoc:   The Punk scene in Swansea was unique. We didn’t really know what was going on in London because punk wasn’t reported in the newspapers except in some shock horror story, but the main thing about punk was the do-it-yourself attitude. Music had become big business, the bands were massive and the music had become self -indulgent. We couldn’t play like Led Zeppelin. That amount of gear would never fit in Jeff’s van. So punk was a way of reclaiming music from big business. In the early days each band interpreted this in their own way and we were all different. The same thing happened with the fashion. There were no Sid Vicious clones in black leather, we wore colourful stuff that we got from jumble sales or charity shops. It was only later that the punk image and music became a stereotype. They were fun times although we did get some trouble from older rockers who were scared of anything new and different.

There were some great bands in Swansea at that time like the DC10s, The End, The Lost Boys, the Urge, The Dodos, Venom, The Autonomes etc We all played at the same venues and then would see each other at gigs. There is a Facebook page where we all meet up, share photos and chat about old times. I think it is a closed group but if you are interested let me know. Swansea - Punk Rock and New Wave .

AmeriCymru:   What were your favourite bands of that era? Which ones did you get to see live?

Madoc:   I went to see bands whenever I could including the Clash, The Damned, The Buzzcocks, The Lurkers etc. My favourite band was the Ramones. It could be quite dangerous going to see a punk band. On one occasion I was chased by some angry locals from Port Talbot and on another occasion I went to see the Damned in Cardiff. This was a big adventure for a boy from Neath. The venue was an old cinema called the Prince of Wales which showed “adult” films. We found the people selling the tickets and they looked like proper London punks. They giggled as we left but we didn’t know why. Then when the Damned came on stage we realised that these were the people we had brought the tickets from. We had heard their music but we had never seen pictures of them them. During the gig, which was on the first floor (second to you Americans) there was so much pogoing (bouncing up and down) that the floor started to shake. That was the last gig allowed at the venue.

The other thing that happened around that time was the Rock Against Racism gigs which were organised by the Anti Nazi League. This was in response to an unhealthy surge in right wing politics in the UK. Groups like the National Front and the British National Party were pretty nasty and seemed to hate everyone who wasn’t like them. Something had to be done about them and music became the rallying point. At these gigs reggae bands and punk bands would share the same stage. I saw lots of great acts like Elvis Costello, Matumbi, Burning Spear, Aswad, Richrad Hell and the Voidoids. It was fun but we were also politically aware and active.

AmeriCymru:   Where can readers go to hear the Tunnelrunners online?

Madoc:   If anyone is interested in hearing our music there is a myspace site https://myspace.com/tunnelrunners/music/songs

and there are several videos on youtube. Here is a link to Plastic Land

There is no footage of us live just photos and these are on our facebook site https://www.facebook.com/TheTunnelrunners?fref=ts

The music sounds best on vinyl so if you can get hold of it that way you should.

AmeriCymru:   Any final message for AmeriCymru members and readers?

Madoc:   The Tunnelrunners did reform in the eighties and made a film which still exists somewhere. We got some new band members. Neil Sinclair on Bass and Guy Lawrence on drums. The music became a bit less punky but we never smoothed off the rough edges. We played gigs in Cardiff and Newport for a few years. We even played at TJs where Kurt Cobain proposed to Courtney Love. Our last gig was in the late nineties by which time I was becoming too old and too fat so we had the good sense to stop.

There is a lot of nonsense written about punk and what happened in the late seventies but as far as I am concerned it gave the music industry the kick it needed. These days kids can make music in their bedrooms which sounds very punk but then they all seem to want a record deal from a big company. We did it for ourselves and there is something to be said for that. It teaches you valuable lessons for life about being self-reliant and builds up a healthy distrust of authority which has stood me in good stead through my career.  I now work in television and have worked on many pop videos and music shows with lots of Welsh bands like Cataonia, The Stereophonics, The Manic Street Preachers and the Super Furry Animals. All these bands owe something to the punk revolution of the late seventies and it was great fun being young and in a band at that time.

SNOW is the codename assigned to Arthur Owens, one of the most important British spies of the Second World War. Described by MI5 as a typical 'Welsh underfed type' he became the first of the great double-cross agents who were to play a major part in Britain's victory over the Germans. AmeriCymru spoke to author Madoc Roberts about this fascinating and little known character.

Buy 'Snow'  HERE ( Kindle edition available )

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AmeriCymru:- Hi Madoc and many thanks for agreeing to be interviewed by AmeriCymru. When did you first become aware of 'Snow'? What piqued your interest?

Madoc:- I have my own television production company called Barkingmad tv and amongst other things we traced Hitler’s relatives to Long Island in New York. This involved getting hold of files from both the American and British Governments. Around the same time I noticed files about a Welsh spy called Snow were being released. I started researching him in case there might be a television programme in the story and that was the start of a six year search which ended up as my first book. This involved reading hundreds of secret Mi5 files and tracing his family. I have discovered a son in Ireland and a Hollywood branch of the family.

Snow’s real name was Arthur Owens and he was born in Pontardawe and later moved to Canada where he invented an improvement to batteries which he hoped would make his fortune but nobody wanted it so he came back to Europe . One day he walked into the German embassy in Belgium and came out as Germany’s master spy in Britain with the codename Johnny O’Brien. Every German spy sent to Britain was told to contact Johnny. What the German’s didn’t know was that he was already working for the British security services and he handed all these agents over to Mi5. That is how this little Welshman became the most important British double agent during the early years of WWII

AmeriCymru:- How easy was it to access the MI5 files necessary for your research? How much work was involved?

Madoc:- The files were all kept at the National archives in Kew where the staff are very helpful. The problem is that the system is not easy to follow so you have to be very persistent to get what you want. There were hundreds of pages on Snow (his real name was never mentioned) so I photographed them all, took them home and started reading this amazing story which had never been told. In many cases you are the first person looking at these files that were written over sixty years ago, so it is a thrilling experience.

AmeriCymru:- How valuable was Owens work to the allied cause?

Madoc:- The pattern that Arthur Owens set as Mi5’s first wartime double agent was followed by all those who followed. By the end of the war Mi5 controlled every single agent that Germany had sent to Britain and they also took their expenses which means that the Germans were paying for Mi5s operation. The greatest success of the double cross system was the D-Day deceptions which saved thousands of allied lives. It has been described as the greatest military deception since a large wooden horse was discovered one morning outside the city of Troy. On top of all this Arthur Owens messages which were sent to his handlers in Hamburg were used to make the first British breakthrough in the German Enigma code. He also went on may exciting missions involving early infra-red systems, trying to capture senior German spies and he brought back information regarding German plans to poison British reservoirs. I would say he was vital to the allied cause.

AmeriCymru:- OK I have to ask...which side was he on? Or was he playing both sides to his own advantage? The trip to Lisbon and the spell in Dartmoor are as confusing as they are intriguing.

Madoc:- Arthur Owens has always had bad press and his role as the founder of the double cross system has largely been ignored. The reason for this is because most of the books that bother to mention him rely on German sources for their information but of course these sources were based on false information that Mi5 were sending to the Germans in order to send them on the wrong path. Mi5s problem with him was that unlike most of their other agents who were ex criminals, Arthur Owens was a volunteer. His initial motive may well have been money but he had something of worth and in 1935 when he started spying for the British security services we were not at war with Germany. The public school boys and ex-military types of Mi5 described him as a “typical underfed Cardiff type” and he is often categorised as a fervent Welsh nationalist who sang folk songs to entertain the Germans but his son denies that he could sing a note. The information he gave to the Germans was all cleared by Mi5 and the formation he brought back from his exciting missions was invaluable.

After his final mission to Lisbon Mi5 decided that they couldn’t trust Snow anymore and chose to believe the ex-criminals they had watching him. The problem with the double game was that it was hard to know when an agent was tricking them or just playing their part as a Nazi spy. One false move and an agent could find themselves being put up against the wall and shot by either side. Arthur Owens liked a drink and everyone at his local pub seemed to know that he was a spy so when Mi5 had him detained in Dartmoor it was probably his saving grace. It is typical of Arthur Owens that even when he was in Dartmoor he took it upon himself to spy on his fellow inmates and he brought out some of the first information about the German V2 rockets.

AmeriCymru:- Why do you think the Heath government blocked rehabilitation of Owen's name?

Madoc:- In the 1970s several books were published about the double cross system and this was the first time that their existence was acknowledged publicly. These books painted a very unflattering picture of Arthur Owens who was portrayed as an untrustworthy, duplicitous, womaniser. Upon reading these accounts his eldest son Robert wrote to the Prime Minister asking to be allowed to tell his side of his father’s story. However Ted Heath used the official secrets act to block Robert’s right of reply. Robert probably had a rose tinted view of his father’s activities and by the strict letter of the law none of the books should have been published either. In fact the authors had to go America to find publishers. After the war Arthur Owens used his skills as a master spy to change his identity and vanish because he feared that someone he had double crossed might catch up with him. This not only made it a very difficult task to find him, it also left a vacuum which was filled by myths and half-truths. He didn’t want to be rehabilitated he just wanted to start a new family and forget about his war time activities.

AmeriCymru:- There is a Hollywood connection to this story. Care to tell us what it is and how you discovered it?

Madoc:- The Mi5 files mentioned that Snow had a daughter who they called Pat. I knew from her age that she would have been born in Canada but finding Canadian citizens is not easy as only family can apply for certificates. The only Patricia Owens I could find in Canada was a Hollywood film star who was the star of the original version of The Fly so I dismissed her as a mere coincidence. There were many people looking for Arthur Owens on the internet but by this time I knew that most of the books were wrong when they gave his middle name as George. I had discovered the patent for the battery invention which gave his middle name as Graham. So when someone replied to one of my requests for information saying that his father might be Snow’s son and that his name was Graham I got in touch with him. We compared notes and it became obvious that I was talking to a son of agent Snow from his second family which he started in Ireland. The Graham told me that as a boy he had been taken to the pictures to see The Fly and his mother told him that the leading lady on the screen was his sister. Patricia Owens had a glittering career appearing in over thirty films alongside the likes of Marlon Brando, James mason and Vincent Price. However she lost touch with her father and lived in fear that the public portrayal of him that emerged of him as a Nazi spy would become public and her career would be over.

AmeriCymru:- Do you think there is more to be discovered about this devious and fascinating character?

Madoc:- Snow is buried in an unmarked grave in Ireland because his son can’t quite work out what to put on his stone. I do find it a bit of a coincidence that he died only a few days after a newspaper article was published about his activities as a spy. At the time he was living in Ireland where he attended nationalist meetings and clapped loudly at the end of speeches although he couldn’t understand a word of Irish. If he had been sent to Ireland to infiltrate Sinn Fein then his time in Dartmoor would have given him the perfect cover but as with all things in Snow’s story you never know if things are true or whether it is all part of the double cross game. I may have to make another visit to the National archives to see if I can uncover even more.

AmeriCymru:- Where can our readers go to buy the book online?

Madoc:- Snow: the double life of a world war II spy is available through Amazon here

It has also just been released in the USA and can be purchased here

If people want to read more about Snow they can go to the codenamesnow site Where there is more information, a video interview with Snow’s son which features clips of Patricia with Marlon Brando in the Oscar winning Sayonara. The site also has a BBC Wales news item about him and a BBC Radio Wales interview I did on Jammie Owen’s show.

There are also lots more pictures including previously unseen family photos on my Facebook site

AmeriCymru:- What's next for Madoc Roberts?

Madoc:- I have just finished editing an interesting episode of the channel four archaeology series Time Team which went in search of Shakespeare’s house in Stratford upon Avon. I am also hoping that we might get a chance to make a follow up feature film to “Flick” which we made a few years ago and starred Faye Dunaway as a one armed cop in search of a killer zombie! Also an American record label has re-released my bands single from the seventies. We were called the Tunnelrunners and we were a punk band which played in the Swansea area. One of the original singles sold on eBay recently for $1,000 and a re-release of four other songs will come out soon. On the book front I am looking at a Nazi plot to kidnap the Duke of Windsor which I am provisionally calling Operation Willi and the Nazi Queen. It is a great story but a bit of a minefield when it comes to the research so we will have to see how it goes.

AmeriCymru:- Any final message for the members and readers of AmeriCymru?

Madoc:- Nadolig Llawen a blwyddyn Newydd dda I chi gyd and if you are looking for a gift with a seasonal title then let’s all hope that we get Snow for Christmas. (Geddit? Sorry.)

Interview by Ceri Shaw Email

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Buy 'Snow'  HERE ( Kindle edition available )

Snow is that rare thing an important work of historical research that reads like a fast-paced spy thriller. Although it must be added that the events recounted therein would be deemed highly improbable if they were fiction. The central character Arthur Graham Owens is a study in vanity, folly , recklessness, courage and determination combined. This deeply flawed character commands respect, despite his many weaknesses, because his antics contributed more to the Allied war effort than he, or his MI5 'handlers' could ever have imagined.

Snow offered his services to German Intelligence in Hamburg in 1935. The strength of his allegiance to the Nazi cause must be doubted however when we take into account MI5 observations which record him shopping for photographic equipment and magazines packed with pictures of outdated military vehicles . Indeed it is doubtful that he ever supplied his Abwehr paymasters with anything of real significance.

During a bizarre episode in Wandsworth Prison in 1939 Snow attempted to contact the Abwehr in Hamburg with a radio set which had been supplied for the purpose. He had been detained by British Intelligence on the suspicion that he was a double agent and was attempting to prove his potential value to MI5. The transmitter promptly blew a fuse and after repairs had been carried out several more attempts were made before the response signal, 'OEA' was received. A few miles away at an RSS ( Radio Security Service ) listening station an amazing discovery was made. Instead of going directly to Hamburg the messages from Owens were intercepted by a spy trawler off the coast of Norway. From here they were re-transmitted after being encoded using the German Enigma machine. Consequently British Intelligence were able to listen in to both transmissions , one coded and one in plain text. Since Owens had been instructed to broadcast at 4 in the morning all that the RSS had to do to break the German cipher for the day was compare and analyse the two messages. Thus, unwittingly, the Welsh 'master spy' gave British Intelligence access to secret German military communications throughout Europe.

After serving as a double agent for two years Snow was debriefed following a top level meeting with the head of the Abwehr in Portugal. The account of these interrogations is as detailed as it is fascinating. According to Snow he was confronted with the fact that he had been operating as a double agent almost immediately upon arrival in Lisbon. And yet, the Germans chose to do nothing about this and sent him back to Britain with 10,000 GBP and a variety of concealed explosive devices to carry on his good work! One can hardly blame MI5 for being somewhat sceptical.The detailed exchanges between Snow and his interrogators are a study in mind-boggling duplicity. The records of these discussions have been meticulously reaearched by the books authors with reference to original source materials from the archives of the British Security Service ( MI5 ). Fortunately they are presented in a thoroughly engaging manner and the reader will have fun trying to work out what really happened in Lisbon. Whatever your conclusion you are sure to sympathise with the MI5 operative who concluded that "I am more than ever convinced that Snow's is a case not for the Security Service but for a brain specialist" and also with interrogator Tommy Robertson:-

"....Robertson was sure that he was lying. But Owen's story was so inconsistent that he could not determine the nature of the lie or its purpose."

Following the Lisbon incident Snow spent some time at HMP Dartmoor. MI5 did not feel they could trust him anymore and they wanted him out of the way. Even while in prison Owens was able to procure information from fellow prisoners which was of value to the war effort. Conversations with a fellow prisoner ( a Danish internee ) led to revelations concerning the German V2 program which were promptly passed on to MI5.

Following the war and his release from prison Owens retired to live quietly in Wexford, Ireland where he died in 1957. He had a reputation as a Welsh Nationalist and became a regular attendee at Sinn Fein meetings where he would clap speechesvery loudly , often delivered in Gaelic, even though he did not speak the language. He was also a regular fixture at the local pub from where he often had to be carried home.

As a work of historical research 'Snow' is a gold mine of information on British clandestine operations in WWII. As a biography it reveals a complex and conflicted character whose true motives may have been as much a mystery to himself as they are to the reader. I have no hesitation in recommending this book to anyone with a love of history or a fascination with the complex, inscrutable and frequently perverse characters who make it.

The short promotional video below perfectly demonstrates why this book cries out for a movie adaptation. Any budding script writers out there?

Review by Ceri Shaw Google+ Email