I find that stories usually come from two or three unrelated ideas suddenly colliding and this was certainly the case for The Paris Secret. While researching The French Photographer, I learned about the Air Transport Auxiliary, and the important role women played in that organisation despite initial prejudices and difficulties. I also came across the story of 161 Squadron, who flew by moonlight into France to deliver SOE agents whose job it was to sabotage the Germans and to spy on them. I knew I wanted to write about both groups of pilots.
The final link that brought it all together came when I visited the Dior exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne in 2017. There, I discovered that Australia was the very first place outside France to show Dior’s gowns in 1947, that David Jones had organised a special showing of Dior’s gowns in 1948, and that Australia thus had a strong connection with the House of Dior.
Many people in the book are based on real historical figures: Pauline Gower, Rosemary Rees, Joan Hughes, Vera Atkins, Amy Johnson, and Catherine and Christian Dior being among the most integral to the story. Wherever I have used a name of a female pilot in the Air Transport Auxiliary, that is the name of a real person. I had to change history slightly with regards to Pauline Gower: she was in charge of the women’s section of the ATA, but Margot Gore was the commanding officer at Hamble, not Pauline. However, it didn’t make sense to introduce another person after the reader had already become comfortable with Pauline; and besides, I already had a Margaux in my story and it would have been confusing to add another.
Many of the incidents I cover in relation to the ATA are based on fact. All the awful quotes from magazines and newspapers about the women pilots are real, as is the first press call, and the fact that the women flew open-cockpit planes to Scotland all through that first bitter winter. I borrowed ATA pilot Maureen Dunlop’s image in the Picture Post of her stepping out of a plane, hand in hair, for Skye. Maureen’s picture was taken at a later time than I have used in the book.
Many books that I read about the ATA referred to the nude medical examination the women were subjected to on joining the ATA – and I have moved the timeframe of this to suit my story. It was the new female American ATA pilots who refused to be subjected to such treatment, but I would like to think that Skye, should she have existed, would have objected too.
The progression of the women from trainer aircraft to fighters to bombers, and the opposition mounted against them at each stage, was also recorded in many of the books that I read. Margot Gore, CO at Hamble, did organise for two of her pilots to go to an RAF base and deliver smiles to a squadron that had suffered losses. The wording I’ve given Pauline, ‘Efficient and pretty, please’, and her asking the pilots to make themselves as attractive as possible, are both recorded in, among other sources, Sisters in Arms: British and American Women Pilots During World War II by Helena Page Schrader. In the same book is the story of a female ATA pilot being tasked with delivering a Beaufighter to an RAF base to show the men, who had refused to fly that aircraft type, that even a woman could fly it.
Skye’s stay at RAF Leavesden and the attitude of the RAF towards women flying the largest planes, and requiring them to do more practice circuits than the men, is based on Lettice Curtis’s experiences, recorded in Bomber Girls by MJ Foreman. The grounding of all women for further physical and cognitive assessments after Mona Friedlander burst a tyre on a plane is noted in Spitfire Women of World War II by Giles Whittell.
The lunch at which Skye speaks about allowing women to fly a wider range of operational aircraft to help resolve the pilot shortage in Britain is based on similar lunches at which Pauline Gower spoke on the same topic. The film They Flew Alone, about pilot Amy Johnson, that Skye sees in London is a real film.
All of the information about the difficult flying conditions faced by the ATA is based on fact: they did fly without instruments and radio, instead using visual navigation and dead reckoning, and avoiding clouds at all costs; and they were unarmed. Many of their pilots died on the job; and occasional attacks on the ferry pilots by German planes did occur.
Other sources I consulted for information about the Air Transport Auxiliary include: Diana Barnato Walker’s memoir, Spreading My Wings; Rosemary du Cros’s (née Rees) memoir, ATA Girl; Brief Glory by EC Cheesman; the Air Transport Auxiliary’s Ferry Pilots Notes; and the collection of papers about the Air Transport Auxiliary held at the National Archives in Kew. The Imperial War Museum at Duxford allowed me to see many of the different kinds of aeroplanes that Skye would have flown, and helped me understand the mechanics of flight.
The Dior family home, Villa Les Rhumbs, is a beautiful building set in stunning grounds atop a cliff in Granville, France. I visited the house, gardens and the Dior museum now located there in October 2017 and knew immediately that I wanted to use the house in my book. The only issue was that the Diors, who purchased the villa in 1905, were forced to sell it in 1932 due to money problems. It was purchased by the town of Granville in 1932, meaning the Diors were no longer living there in the 1940s. I hope you will forgive me for using the home anyway as I just couldn’t imagine that part of the story unfolding anywhere else.
All of the gowns Kat finds in the house in Cornwall are real Dior gowns. The four outfits bequeathed to the museum Kat works at are based on the four original Dior designs shown at the Paris Fashions For All parade at David Jones in 1947. The mysterious blue dress is a figment of my imagination.
For information about Christian Dior, I referred to Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams, published by Thames & Hudson; Dior by Dior: The Autobiography of Christian Dior; and The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture by the National Gallery of Victoria. I also visited the Dior exhibition at the NGV in 2017, and the Dior exhibition at the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris in 2017, and read many of the extant newspaper articles published in Australian newspapers about the Dior showings in 1947 and 1948, as well as copies of the David Jones newsletters from this time.
161 Squadron did conduct moonlight flights into France for two weeks every month, carrying secret agents and supplies for the Resistance; and operated out of the secret base RAF Tempsford, with forward operations carried out from RAF Tangmere. For this part of the story I referred to Lysander Pilot: Secret Operations with 161 Squadron by former pilot James Atterby McCairn; We Landed by Moonlight by former pilot Hugh Verity; RAF Tempsford: Churchill’s Most Secret Airfield by Bernard O’Connor; Runways to Freedom: The Special Duties Squadrons of RAF Tempsford by Robert Body; the collection of records of 161 Squadron held at the National Archives in Kew; and the collections of the RAF Tangmere museum, which I visited in October 2017. I also read former WAAF Doreen Galvin’s memoir, Arts to Intelligence, to help me understand the role of the women of the WAAF at RAF Tempsford.
Another part of the story that I have manipulated slightly is to do with Margaux and Nicholas’s cover story. Once several women were working for SOE, their cover was that they worked for the Inter-Services Research Bureau, a fictional organisation. Female SOE agents were recruited from the WAAF, and several were commissioned as junior officers in the WAAF, like Margaux. I made Margaux one of the first women to work for SOE, before protocols for women were clear, so that I could create an engagement cover story. It’s possible that this could have happened; as SOE was a secret organisation, nobody knows everything about how it worked. As SOE expert MRD Foot says in his book SOE 1940–1946 ‘the exact size of SOE has never been revealed … exactly who did and did not belong to SOE are questions so difficult and intricate …’ Therefore, I went with what was possible.
Much of the information Elliott reveals to Kat about SOE is based on fact, including the mishandling of the search for missing agents – especially the women – towards the end of the war. I gleaned much of this from Sarah Helm’s excellent book A Life in Secrets: The Story of Vera Atkins and the Lost Agents of SOE. In this book, I also discovered the story of the misidentification of agents Sonia Olschanesky and Nora (or Noor) Inayat K
han.
As well as the above-mentioned books, my research on SOE took me to the Imperial War Museum in London and I found, in particular, their Secret War permanent collection very useful. I also read through the SOE papers held at the National Archives in Kew, and referred to the book The Women Who Spied for Britain: Female Secret Agents of the Second World War by Robyn Walker and The Heroines of SOE: F Section, Britain’s Secret Women in France by Beryl E Escott.
Some SOE historians take issue with the use of the word ‘spy’ in relation to SOE agents, preferring to call them secret agents. However, as Sarah Helm notes, the women were working for a secret service; they wore no military uniform and were thus liable to be executed as spies; they had no legal protection as, when the Hague Convention was drawn up, it had never been envisaged that women would be used as combatants; and they were performing clandestine work in enemy territory. If this doesn’t make them spies, then I don’t know what does!
The hardest thing of all to write about in this book was Ravensbrück concentration camp. Geneviève de Gaulle’s memoir, The Dawn of Hope: A Memoir of Ravensbrück, is heartbreaking reading. I borrowed the story about the birthday cake made of crumbs and decorated with twig candles from this book. Sarah Helm’s Ravensbrück: Life and Death in Hitler’s Concentration Camp For Women was thorough, important and haunting, and I used many of the anecdotes that women recounted to Helm for my story, including everything relating to the Kinderzimmer, the death buses in the woods, the dumping of bodies for sorting outside the Revier, the retrospective order to Camp Commandant Suhren to kill two thousand prisoners each month, the Good Friday round-up of women, and Jeannie Rousseau’s heroics at Torgau. Two further memoirs from Ravensbrück survivors, Forgive, Don’t Forget: Surviving Ravensbrück by Jacqueline Péry d’Alincourt and An American Heroine in the French Resistance by Virginia D’Albert-Lake, provided further detail and also the epigraphs on pages 365 and 417.
I am indebted to Suzanne Chee, fashion conservator at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, who invited me to spend a day with her so I could understand what her job involves, and who let me (with gloves on!) touch and examine some of the museum’s collection of Dior gowns from the late 1940s. She also gave me a copy of Marika Genty’s presentation on Christian Dior, which was very helpful. I also owe a big thank you to Elizabeth Carter, manager of the Vibrational Spectroscopy Facility at the University of Sydney, who talked to me about how one might analyse fabric and inks, and showed me how spectroscopes were used for this kind of analytical work.
The lost garden that Skye and Nicholas find, and which Liberty resurrects, is based on the Lost Gardens of Heligan at St Austell in Cornwall. Finally, I apologise to whoever lives in the house atop the cliff just outside the town of Porthleven in Cornwall for my clambering all over the surrounding land trying to take photographs. The position of your house inspired the Penroses’ home in this book.
Acknowledgements
I always thank Rebecca Saunders first but that’s because she is such a big part of each and every one of my books. When I first told her I wanted to write a book about a collection of Dior gowns, and Catherine Dior, and female pilots, and a secret moonlight squadron, and everything else, she told me to go for it, so I did. Rebecca’s inexhaustible enthusiasm and support is what every writer needs, and I’m very lucky to have her as my publisher.
Thanks also to Alex Craig who, as Fiction Publisher at Hachette Australia while Rebecca was on maternity leave, had to suffer all of my meltdowns when I thought that the book was too big, too vast, too complicated and beyond the scope of my abilities. Thank you, Alex, for always listening, for your sage advice, for your brilliant editorial eye.
I want to thank everyone else at Hachette Australia who had a hand in this book, but especially Sophie Mayfield, whose editorial skills are second to none, who I trust beyond anything, and who helps me sort out all the intricate problems associated with a novel like this. And thanks to Dan Pilkington, who champions each of my books, and to the superb sales team too. To Fiona Hazard and Louise Sherwin-Stark, thanks for always being accessible and supportive as well.
Nicola O’Shea’s copyediting skills made this a much better book, and I thank her for all of her advice and assistance.
My publishing team in the US at Grand Central is the best any writer could wish for and I owe a big thank you to Leah Hultenschmidt and Jodi Rosoff particularly.
To my family – Russell, Ruby, Audrey and Darcy – I love you all and thank you for always being proud of what I do, for coming with me on weird and wonderful research expeditions, and for all the hugs and kisses.
Sara Foster always reads my novels for me and she has an especial talent for saying just the right thing at just the right time. Thank you for being such a wonderful writing buddy. And Louise Allan, thank you for our fortnightly writing catch-ups where we write a little, and talk a lot.
My readers are the nicest people in the world and I wish I could personally thank every single one of you. Thank you for coming along to my events, for sending me beautiful messages, for your enthusiasm and your joy, for loving my characters as much as I do.
Without booksellers we would have no books, so my last thank you goes to everyone who has sold, recommended, displayed, promoted or supported my novels. Thank you!
If you enjoyed The Paris Secret, read on for an extract of Natasha Lester’s New York Times bestselling novel, The French Photographer
One
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 1942
Jessica May turned on her famous smile and raised her arm aloft, her movements as repetitive as those of the riveters and welders and all the other jobs women were doing these days. Except that she wasn’t in a factory and she wasn’t wearing overalls.
Instead, she stood on a white platform, backdropped by a brilliant autumnal sky, wearing a white silk dress, bridal in length. It was designed to cling to the front of her body – helped along by the fans blowing over her – and then billow behind her in the artificial breeze, goddess-like. A white cape tied at her neck rippled too, adding to the celestial effect. Two large American flags fluttered proudly beside her, and her outstretched arm made it appear as if she might declaim something important at any moment. But that was also part of the make-believe; since when did a model have anything momentous to say about patriotism and war?
Once upon a time she’d marched passionately in the streets of Paris protesting against fascism, first as its vile ideology swept through Spain, then as it turned Italy and Germany into grotesqueries. Now Jessica May was simply the figurehead of a ship. Or Toni Frissell, the photographer, would make her into one after the photograph had been cropped and manipulated in just the right way for the cover of Vogue, a cover that would be as galvanising as everyone needed it to be in late 1942. Nobody would ever know that there was no ship, no water, no sea breeze, no goddess; just a few props in a field in upstate New York, beside a herd of cows with quizzical eyes chewing over the interruption to their ordinarily pastoral outlook.
Toni asked her to rearrange her face. To look solemn. To respect the flag and the men and her country and the fighting. Jess did as she was asked.
‘Perfect,’ Toni said soon after. ‘I don’t need any more.’
So Jess stepped off the platform, batting away the wardrobe assistant who wanted to help her down. She unhooked the cape and moved behind a screen where the assistant helped her change into the next outfit, a Claire McCardell bathing suit made of black wool jersey with a very low-cut v-neckline and a row of brass hook-and-eye closures down the front.
This time, when Jess climbed onto the platform, she sat between the flags, pretending to dip her toes into the imaginary water that readers of Vogue would think lay just out of shot. She smiled and tipped her face up to the sun, leaning back on her elbows. A cow bellowed its approval and she laughed. Toni caught the shot at just the right moment.
Then a car drew up in a hurry on the dirt road alongside the field. Belinda Bower, Vogue editor and Jess’s friend, ste
pped out and picked her way across the field in a pencil skirt and heels, wobbling, but clearly determined not to appear as out of place as a tuxedo at the seaside. Toni lowered the camera and Jess straightened. Bel never interfered with photo shoots. Something was up.
Which Belinda confirmed moments later when she reached Jess and showed her a full-page Kotex advertisement in McCall’s. The words, It has women’s enthusiastic approval! were emblazoned across the top of the page. Underneath, Jessica May posed idly in an evening gown as if she hadn’t a care in the world, and especially not about the taboo subject of menstruation.
‘Goddammit!’ Jess said.
‘Goddammit,’ Bel agreed. ‘Shoot’s off,’ she called to the makeup artists, the hairstylists, Toni’s assistant, and Toni.
Toni packed her camera away without asking any questions. But the eyes of everyone else remained fixed on Jess and Bel. There was no good reason to call off a shoot that everyone could see had been going exceptionally well. Unless Jessica May was in some kind of trouble. And that was both likely and a toothsome piece of gossip nobody wanted to miss.
‘It had to be Emile,’ Jess muttered as they walked across to the privacy of the cows. ‘He took that picture of me last year. He must have sold it to Kotex.’
‘I thought so,’ Bel replied. ‘I tried to get Condé to change his mind; hell, he wanted me to change his mind – you know he adores you – but we also know the advertisers would abandon us quicker than Joan Blondell can remove her clothes.’
Despite everything, Jess grinned at the quip. Then she sighed. Bel was right. None of Vogue’s advertisers would want their products appearing in the magazine that had the Kotex girl on the cover. Because the Kotex girl was what she’d be known as from now on. Even living with Emile out of wedlock wasn’t as great a sin as menstruation. ‘How long will I be on the blacklist?’ she asked.
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