The real Miss Moneypennys: the secret history of Britain's female spies

Summary

---

History Extra Podcast: “The Real Miss Moneypennys: The Secret History of Britain’s Female Spies”

Release Date: September 23, 2025
Host: Rachel Dinning
Guest: Dr. Claire Hubbard-Hall, historian and author of Her Secret Service

---

Episode Overview

This engaging episode delves into the little-known stories of women who served in British intelligence throughout the 20th century. Dr. Claire Hubbard-Hall, whose recent book Her Secret Service shines a light on these forgotten pioneers, joins host Rachel Dinning to trace women’s involvement from the very inception of MI5 and MI6 up to the near future, as Britain prepares for its first female head of MI6. Drawing on years of challenging research, Hubbard-Hall separates myth (the glamorous “Moneypenny” and Mata Hari archetypes) from reality, revealing the essential yet overlooked roles women played in security, espionage, and organizational backbone of British intelligence.

---

Key Themes and Discussion Points

1. Uncovering Secret Histories

Challenge of Researching Female Spies

• Description of the archival obstacles: women’s contributions were often omitted from official records, due to the gendered division of labor and lasting secrecy.
• Hubbard-Hall describes her research process:

  “Their tradecraft is pretty good... These are individuals that don’t want to be found, so how am I possibly going to get at them?” (03:24 – 03:39)

• Adopts methods akin to counterintelligence officers, piecing together clues from marginalia, initials, and family artifacts.

2. Origins of British Intelligence Services

Foundation Myths and How Fiction Shaped Reality

• MI5 and MI6 emerged from the 1909 Secret Service Bureau amidst Edwardian paranoia about German spies—exacerbated by popular fiction.

  “Stories are fuelled in part... by fiction writers, spy fiction writers, who absolutely take this idea of German spies and saboteurs... to an extreme level, which creates this kind of spy fever amongst the British public.” (05:20 – 05:49)

• Comically, the government asked novelist William Le Queux for “evidence,” which he provided using fictitious letters from the public (06:10–06:50).

3. Pioneering Women in British Espionage

Early Entrants & the Paradox of Trust

• Women present from the origin—Agnes Blake, recruited personally by the “C” (chief of MI6), Mansfield Cumming, as the first female agent in 1910.

  "She was a middle-aged widow... She was able to travel unchaperoned... had direct links to the German military... she was perfect." (09:22 – 10:43)

• Paradox: The state trusted women with national secrets decades before granting them the vote.

  “She was trusted to keep secrets at a time when the state didn’t even trust women to have the vote.” (14:38–14:51, Rachel quoting Claire)

• Family revelation: Even Agnes Blake’s relatives were “pretty much floored” to learn about her clandestine life. (11:55)

Workplace Challenges

• Agnes’s pay was halved; her protest nearly cost her the job, exposing early gender discrimination within MI6. She left, but not before claiming her owed expenses (12:35–14:25).

4. How Women Entered Intelligence & Barriers to Promotion

Clerical Route & the Importance of Information Management

• Most women entered via low-paid clerical/admin routes (typewriting)—unremarkable titles, but essential work as the "cornerstone” of intelligence.

  “Information management, if we want to put it into modern day terms, is the basis, the cornerstone, as I call it, of all intelligence work.” (16:23–16:30)

• Standouts like Jane Siskmore (later Archer) rose to become MI5’s first female officer by 1929 (18:00–18:40).

• Progress stalled: She remained the only female officer until after WWII, reflecting “how difficult it was for women to progress.” (18:50–19:35)

• Others led technical sections (e.g., invisible inks, photography) but were denied officer status and equal pay.

• The slow, door-by-door advance toward equality:

  “These women knew how to open doors so that other women coming after them could walk through them and then open another door, until we finally get…to the Director General of MI5” (19:50–20:19)

---

[21:57] The Real Miss Moneypennys – Kathleen Pettigrew

Dispelling the Glamour Myth; Reality vs. Bond

• Kathleen Pettigrew: Personal assistant to the MI6 chief, known for saying:

  “I was Miss Moneypenny, but with more power.” (22:25, Kathleen Pettigrew via Claire)

• Pettigrew—roots in working-class Bermondsey, not high society.
• Her discretion and loyalty meant she left barely a trace; uncovering her story required years of dogged research.
• Ian Fleming (Bond’s creator) would have passed Pettigrew’s desk in wartime MI6; details (soundproofed doors, red/green lights) were apparently drawn from life, not imagination. (25:10–25:40)
• Pettigrew’s influence was vast: “everything passed her desk” (29:00–29:40).
• Likely the shorthand secretary for Mata Hari’s interrogation in 1916, placing her at history’s dramatic moments (29:38–32:04).
• On media myths:

  “Mata Hari...becomes the stereotype for women in intelligence. Then you have Kathleen Pettigrew, actually one of these real women—and they’re completely two different pictures. Yet the Mata Hari myth has so much more power.” (31:55–32:10)

---

[33:15] Winifred Spink—First Female Officer Posted to Russia

• Sent to Petrograd (1916) as a Russian linguist and accomplished administrator.
• Notably paid equal salary to her male colleagues, rare for the era (34:05–34:50).
• Witnessed the Russian Revolution first-hand; responsible for cataloguing travel data on those moving between Russia and Britain.
• Reveals a tantalizing connection to the Rasputin assassination—her diary notes, out-of-character for her, provided an alibi for her British intelligence colleagues on the night of Rasputin’s death.

  “There was a clear plan behind why on that night Winnie, along with this unnamed male driver, would go for a joyride. Well, of course, if anybody threw question or suspicion... they could say... how could we have done it? Because Winnie was driving around in the mission car.” (37:40–39:20)

• The power of pri vate diaries to color official history.

---

[39:48] Unsung Cold War Heroines—Rita Windsor

• Early female MI6 officer during WWII; described as MI6’s “brilliant travel quartermaster,” orchestrating agent exfiltration and infiltration across Europe.

  “The movement of all the spies during the Second World War is facilitated...by Rita Windsor, which is awesome.” (40:18–41:18)

• Also ran agents in Lisbon, including Otto John, one of the Stauffenberg plotters.
• Pivotal postwar career: “Retired” to run a high-end travel agency (International Services) which continued to serve as an MI6 front during the Cold War.
• The pattern: Many significant female contributions remain obscured in classified archives or family recollections.

---

[42:55– End] A Historic Milestone: The First Female Chief ('C') of MI6

• At time of recording, MI6 is poised to appoint its first female chief.

• Hubbard-Hall situates this as the culmination of a century-long journey by women breaking into, and rising within, intelligence.

  “It's been 116 years since the Secret Service Bureau... Agnes Blake to now... that’s a long time to see a woman finally... take a sledgehammer to that glass ceiling.” (43:26–44:10)

• Emphasizes hope for lasting change, not a one-off, and notes the persistent glacial pace of gender-equal progression in intelligence agencies.

  “They really are standing on the shoulders of those pioneering women in MI6’s history, from Agnes Blake, Kathleen Pettigrew, Rita Windsor... But it’s happening. And that’s exciting.” (45:22–45:40)

• Her final note: the achievement of a female C should be “celebrated rather than questioned.”

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On archival obstacles:

  “I had to adopt the kind of methods that a counterintelligence officer today uses.” (03:30–03:48, Claire)

• On the paradox of trust:

  “Women were trusted to keep secrets at a time when the state didn’t even trust women to have the vote.” (14:51, Rachel quoting Claire)

• On Pettigrew’s real power:

  “I was Miss Moneypenny, but with more power.” (22:25)

• On Mata Hari’s myth:

  “When you actually drill down to who she was as a woman, her story is actually a very sad one and is completely different. The reality and the fiction are... two very different things.” (32:18–33:15)

• On progress and the glass ceiling:

  “Standing on the shoulders of those pioneering women in MI6’s history...the change has been rolling on, it’s been at a glacial pace.” (45:23–45:40, Claire)

---

Key Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|---------| | 03:04–04:34 | Research challenges & adopting counterintelligence tactics | | 05:42–08:59 | Origins of MI5/MI6 & influence of fiction | | 09:15–12:24 | Agnes Blake’s recruitment, background, and family discovery | | 14:38–15:58 | Paradox of women trusted with secrets but not the vote | | 16:08–20:24 | Clerical entry, the glass ceiling, and path to top jobs | | 22:25–29:38 | Kathleen Pettigrew (“Miss Moneypenny but with more power”): research, roots, and influence | | 29:38–33:15 | The Mata Hari myth and its impact on the popular image of women spies | | 33:15–39:35 | Winifred Spink, missions in Russia, and the Rasputin intrigue | | 39:48–42:55 | Rita Windsor: WWII and Cold War operations | | 42:55–46:00 | The imminent appointment of the first female MI6 chief and its significance |

---

Conclusion

This episode offers a vivid, myth-busting journey through the hidden history of Britain’s female spies. Through captivating stories and newly unearthed evidence, Dr. Claire Hubbard-Hall demonstrates that women were indispensible to British intelligence—from tireless clerks to covert operators and power-wielders in the shadows of history. As MI6 prepares for its first female chief, the episode situates this as the culmination of over a century of quiet, persistent pioneering by women—proving that behind the myth of Miss Moneypenny lies a far more complex and courageous reality.

Transcript

[TJ Watt]

I'm NFL linebacker TJ Watt and this.

[Claire Hubbard Hall]

Is my personal best.

[TJ Watt]

YPB by Abercrombie is the activewear I'm always wearing. That's why I reached out to co design their latest drop. I worked with designers to create high performance activewear that holds up to my toughest workouts. Shop YPB by Abercrombie in store, online and in the app because your personal best is greater than any.

[Claire Hubbard Hall]

When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no.

[TJ Watt]

One forgets mom 60th and never miss.

[Claire Hubbard Hall]

A meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn [e-mail] this episode is brought to you by State Farm Checking off the boxes on your to do list is a great feeling and when it comes to checking off coverage, a State Farm agent can help you choose an option that's right for you. Whether you prefer talking in person on the phone or using the award winning app, it's nice knowing you have help finding coverage that best fits your needs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

[TJ Watt]

This episode is brought to you by Jack Daniels Jack Daniels and music are made for each other. They share a rhythm and the craft of making something timeless while being a part of legendary nights. From backyard jams to sold out arenas, there's a song in every toast. Please drink responsibly. Responsibility.org, jack Daniels and Old Number 7 are registered trademarks. Tennessee Whiskey 40% alcohol by volume. Jack Daniel Distillery Lynchburg, Tennessee.

[Claire Hubbard Hall]

Welcome to the History Extra Podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. From cleaners to code breakers, women's contributions to the history of British intelligence have often gone unrecognized and forgotten, but in actuality they penetrated enemy networks, executed astonishing operations and organised all labyrinth of classified documents. Clare Hubbard hall is the author of her Secret Service and speaking to Rachel Dinning, she delves into the untold stories of women in British intelligence.

[Rachel Dinning]

So Clare, welcome to the History Extra podcast. Your book Her Secret Service brings to light the crucial yet often overlooked roles women played in British intelligence services throughout the 20th century. And my first question to you today is how did you approach writing historical book about a topic that is in some ways secret? Some of the individuals in it were bound by the Official Secrets Act. They never talked about it. That must surely have been a Challenge.

[Claire Hubbard Hall]

It definitely was the biggest challenge that I have probably have faced in terms of researching and writing intelligence history. Because when you look at the official records of the intelligence services, MI5, MI6, Government Code and Cipher School, which becomes later GCHQ, and then the wartime intelligence services, when you look at the official records, of course, the people who are making the decisions are men, so they are there, present, very visible in terms of the documentation. But the women, of course, are the ones that are there in the background. They're the ones that are typing up these reports. Most often, they're the ones that are organizing them, storing all this information once it's reached the recipient. You know, all this information went into vast warehouses of registries, which look to. Well, I always like to think looked a little bit like Indiana Jones's warehouse at the end of the film where all these secret documents are wheeled off. So I thought, gosh, how am I going to get at them? You know, they. Their, their tradecraft is pretty good. You know, these are individuals that don't want to be found, so how am I possibly going to get at them? So I had to sort of scratch my head for a bit. And then I sort of came up with the idea, well, I'm going to have to adopt the kind of methods that a counterintelligence officer today uses.

[Rachel Dinning]

So you became a spy?

[Claire Hubbard Hall]

So I became a spy to create that? Absolutely. So I had to take on the mantle of a counterintelligence officer. And that's where you begin, with the smallest piece of information. It could just be a name, it could be initials in the margins on some of these official records, it could be a photograph with unnamed individuals in. But writing on the back of it, I just had to think, how am I going to get at these small pieces of information and then build up the picture like a counterintelligence officer does? So you go down countless rabbit holes on this journey of discovery, of trying to get at these women, but eventually, if you stick at it for long enough, you eventually hit jackpot. And that's what I did. And once you start pulling at one thread in terms of an individual, it then leads to other individuals. So I was able to find other women by following one woman because, of course, in the very early days of Brit and Secret Service, MI6 operated very much like a family.

[Rachel Dinning]

In fact, I was going to ask actually if you could put into context a bit for listeners, because I think it is relevant. You talk a lot in the book about MI5 and MI6. If you told our listeners briefly about their early history, how they were created, and maybe even the difference between the two.

[Claire Hubbard Hall]

So MI5 and MI6 are born out of the Secret Service Bureau, which was founded in 1909. And the reason that the Secret Service Bureau came about is quite interesting and funny in a way, because in the run up to the First World War, the very early Edwardian period, there are stories emerging in the press of hundreds of German spies and saboteurs running across the country, causing havoc and collecting information, sending it back to Germany. And of course, Germany is flexing its imperial muscles. It wants to have an empire that sort of is the same as the British Empire. And this is obviously the backdrop to the run up to the First World War. So the press pick up these stories, but these stories are fuelled in part, can you believe it, by fiction writers, spy fiction writers, who absolutely take this idea of German spies and saboteurs running amok across the country to a extreme level, which creates this kind of spy fever amongst the British public. They were convinced that all these hundreds, if not thousands of German spies were running across there in the country, and they even write into the newspapers saying that they suspect so and so, or they think they've seen this or that. And of course, it's completely, for the most part, completely fictitious. So the government decides that they're going to investigate this and in a decision of irony, they go to one of the fiction writers who has been creating adding fuel to this spy fever, Le Queue, and ask him for evidence of this actually happening. And of course, he then uses these letters that have been sent into the newspapers by the British public. But of course, they're all completely fictitious. So you have this evidence that's used that's not based on concrete fact at all. And this then leads to the Secret Service Bureau being founded to investigate on British soil, you know, trying to catch these, these German agents, and also to gather information abroad on German intelligence gathering. So you have these two kind of organizations, MI5 and MI6, which are born out of the Secret Service Bureau, which is split into two. So you have the home section, which obviously focuses on threat on British soil, which becomes MI5, the security service today. And then you have the foreign section, which is going abroad and gathering information on the German enemy abroad, which then later becomes MI6, or its official name, the Secret Intelligence Service, as it's known today.

[Rachel Dinning]

And your point in your book is that women have been cornerstones of British intelligence right from the start. So can you tell us a bit about the role some women have played in MI5 MI6, the Secret Service Bureau from its inception.

[Claire Hubbard Hall]

So women were there very, very, very at the beginning. So the Secret Service Bureau was officially founded on 1st October 1909 and literally a few months later, with regards to the Foreign Section, which would become MI6, MI6 has actually recruited its first female agent, Agnes Blake, who doesn't fit the stereotype spy that we see on in film and tv. When it comes to women in intelligence who are usually portrayed as being very glamorous, very sexy, they usually are depicted as taking men to bed to get their secrets. Agnes Blake was the complete opposite. She was a middle aged widow who worked as a literary translator and she was a German linguist and she used to travel backwards and forwards to Germany, back to the UK for her translation work. So she was a perfect choice with that regard. Because she was a widow, she was able to travel unchaperoned because women traveling at that time without a chaperone would usually be considered to be a prostitute or if you're a widow, it was accepted. But if you're a young woman traveling without a chaperone, it was deemed that you just didn't do that if you were a lady. So Agnes Blake was middle aged, a widow had the, I guess, the appropriate cover for traveling backwards and forwards from Germany with. But she also had direct links to the German military because many, many years before, her sister had married the equerry to what would become Kaiser Wilhelm. So she had those important connections to top German military officers. She moved in those circles at events that she got invited to. So she was perfect, absolutely perfect. And she was recruited personally by Mansfield Cumming to engage in this work as Agent A again, Agnes, Agent A very sort of simplified in terms of the COVID identities. And when you think about what she actually did, it was actually quite brave.

[Rachel Dinning]

And keeping the whole thing secret. Is that right? Absolutely, I believe. Is it? You contacted her living relatives and they had absolutely no idea that she had been Agent A, that she was a woman spying for MI6.

[Claire Hubbard Hall]

They had, they were completely sort of, sort of fell off their chairs when they, when I gave them, when I revealed what Agnes Blake and her Secret Service work had entailed, they just couldn't believe it. But then once I took them through how I'd arrived at identifying her, everything started to fall into place in terms of things that had survived in the family and it all started to connect together.

[Rachel Dinning]

I'm really curious, what did her male contemporaries at the time make of her? If this was. If it was more of a male dominated industry do we know how she was received?

[Claire Hubbard Hall]

We don't know how she was received, but we do know we have an indication from the correspondence, which, if she hadn't have complained about her pay, which was the. The main focus of the correspondence, we wouldn't have actually known who Agent A's true identity was. So at some point during her work, the MI6 paymaster, who was a Foreign Office official at the time, a bean counter, was told that these individuals were being paid too much and that they were going to have their salaries decreased quite considerably. So Agnes's was halved. I think it went from £200 per annum to a hundred pounds. And she wasn't happy with this because she said, this doesn't even cover my expenses of traveling, you know, to Germany and back to the uk. This, you know, this is not good enough. And she complains to an individual within the Foreign Office who she knew and who had been the sort of route into her Secret Service work. Now, of course, this got back to Mansfield, Cumming Smith and others in the Foreign Office that she had basically broken secrecy. So they then set about trying to get rid of her, which didn't go down very well with Agnes and really sort of shows the kind of character that she was, that she, at that time, when women didn't have equality, you know, sexism and misogyny was completely rife at that point. That was the way of thinking in terms of looking at women's role in society, that they wanted to get rid of her because she was being a pain, basically. And eventually she did leave, but to her testament, she. She did get the money that she was owed and her expenses paid, so she didn't leave without losing a penny.

[Rachel Dinning]

I mean, one thing that is quite interesting about Agnes and women, similarly to her, is that, and you put it in these terms, she was trusted to keep secrets at a time when the state didn't even trust women to have the vote.

[Claire Hubbard Hall]

What a paradox, isn't it, position to be in that, you know, she wasn't the only woman, because, of course, women achieved the vote after the First World War, but of course, it was women of a certain age and owning property. So you still have all those women who are working secretly, having taken the Official Secrets act, being sworn in and trusted with these state and military secrets in the interwar period and even going into the Second World War, because, of course, women. It wasn't, I think, till the early 1960s that women over the age of 18, all women over the age of 18, were actually finally given the vote. So you have women who are younger than 18, who were working in a secret capacity during the Second World War, who were handling secret information, again, but not being trusted with the vote. I mean, it really is quite incredible, isn't it? And speaks volumes, I think, in terms of the fight for equality and what these women, the challenges these women faced in terms of tapping the glass ceiling during the first half of the 20th century.

[Rachel Dinning]

I was curious as well. How were they recruited into the Secret Service? In a myriad of ways, I'm sure. Perhaps you can talk us through a few examples.

[Claire Hubbard Hall]

So probably the first one, which was perhaps the most common route for nearly all of the secret intelligence counterintelligence services was the clerical route. And the typewriter really was that piece of key machinery that opened the door for women entering the office. And of course, the secret office was no different to any other office, apart from obviously the nature, the clandestine nature of the work that was happening. So most of the women's routes were through that clerical route. There were some exceptions to the rule, but for the main part, they were given sort of very low paid clerical administrative jobs, which sounds not very exciting and not very important, but it actually was, because information management, if we want to put it into modern day terms, is the basis, the cornerstone, as I call it, of all intelligence work. And then you get the exceptions to the rule, the women who manage to somehow move into other career paths within these organisations. So Jane Sismore, who becomes Jane Archer when she marries just days before the Second World War breaks out. Jane Sismore leaves school at 18 during the First World War and goes and joins MI5 and starts again at that clerical level. She's working eventually, after the First World War, she then heads the registry. So she's made her way through that clerical route to the head of the registry. And then by 1929, she's the first woman to be appointed an officer, which is incredible. And she's the only woman to be appointed an officer right through until the end of the Second World War. So an incredible achievement, but just shows you the fact that she was that lonely female officer really does paint a picture, as in how difficult it was for women to progress into that type of advancement of, you know, of being an officer, the same as, as their male colleagues. But she faced problems in terms of, I guess, how she was viewed by some of her male colleagues. So it's not an easy run at all. You have other individuals who enter within the clerical route and they hit the, effectively the, the glass ceiling within that clerical level, but they do rise to top positions. So they're heading sections within the organisations, that is, that is dealing with administration, the registry, etc. You have women who are, especially during the First World War in MI5, who are heading up work on Invisible Inks, who are heading up photography. You know, they manage to do that, but of course they're not given an officer label because women can't hold those titles. And they're not given the same pay that a man would either. But they do it nonetheless. And this is when I talk in the book about how these women knew how to open doors so that other women coming after them could walk through them and then open another door until we finally get to the end door, which is of course the head, the very top, the Director General of MI5. We have Stella Rimmington in 1992, the first woman to become the head of the organization 2023 for Anne Keith Butler, who's appointed the first female head of GCHQ. And then of course, we're still waiting for MI6. Judi Dench, of course, has held that position on the TV screen and film, but she doesn't quite count as however magnificent she was. But we are still waiting for the first chief of of MI6, which will happen at some point this year.

[TJ Watt]

If you've shopped online, chances are you've bought from a business powered by Shopify. You know that purple shop pay button you see at checkout? The one that makes buying so incredibly easy? That's Shopify. And there's a reason so many businesses sell with it. Because Shopify makes it incredibly easy to start and run your business. Shopify is the commerce platform behind 10% of all e commerce in the US. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com promo Go shopify.com promo it's pro savings days at Lowe's. Get up to 35% off. Select major appliances and save an additional $1,000 when you buy four select LG major appliances. Plus get a free Dewalt 20 volt max 5amp hour battery when you buy a select Dewalt 20 volt max tool. Get the job done for less at Lowe's. We help you Save. Valid through 926. Selection varies by location while supplies last. See associate or lowe's.com for more details and qualifying items. This episode is brought to you by. Indeed, when your computer breaks, you don't wait for it to magically start working again. You fix the problem. So why wait to hire the people your company Desperately needs. Use Indeed's sponsored jobs to hire top talent fast. And even better, you only pay for results. There's no need to wait. Speed up your hiring with a $75 sponsored job credit@ Indeed.com podcast. Terms and conditions apply.

[Rachel Dinning]

A long road to power paved by many, many different characters. Yeah, and one of the women we haven't spoken about yet is Kathleen Pettigrew, who was the personal assistant to the MI6 chief. And she described herself as. I was Miss Moneypenny, but with more power. So can you tell our listeners a bit about Kathleen Pettigrew? She sounds amazing.

[Claire Hubbard Hall]

What a fantastic line. Every time I say that, it still sends chills down me. It's an incredible line. And to have been in that room when she told the family relative who was joking that she was Miss Moneypenny, and that's how she responded in a very deadly serious response, speaks volumes as to. To what her role was. And she. Kathleen Pettigrew. Miss Kathleen Pettigrew. Miss Pettigrew. Again, the book is full of women with super spy names. Miss Pettigrew is very, very spy like. But she was my starting point for the book. She's also probably the reason, perhaps, why the book may not have been written, because she was so challenging as a first woman that I picked to start with, to see if I could research women in British intelligence, the history, because her tradecraft is incredible. I mean, she basically MI6 became her family. She had very little contact with her actual family and they sort of knew that she worked for the Foreign Office, perhaps in some secret capacity, weren't really aware that it was actually MI6. And then, of course, when she left MI6 at the end of the 1950s, when she retired, she went to perhaps one of the remotest parts in the country. She went to a little Georgian seaside visit in Devon called Sidmouth, which is where she spent 30 years in retirement, and basically didn't play bingo, no bowls, didn't socialise, left very little fingerprints. So it was incredibly hard to research. But again, if you stick with it, and again, you've got to be patient because it can take years, you eventually do manage to piece together some kind of story. And I think I've managed to piece together perhaps the best that anyone will, in terms of who Kathleen Pettigrew was and what she did. And she obviously was aware that perhaps Ian Fleming had modelled Miss Moneypenny, perhaps after her role, because Ian Fleming would have walked past her desk on the way to see Stuart Mingus, the head of MI6 during the second World War. So he would have been incredibly aware of her presence outside Mingus's office, which, just like in James Bond, the leather padded, soundproof door with the red and green lights above it to signal when people could enter and when they couldn't, that actually happened. That wasn't Ian Fleming's imagination. So we have Ms. Moneypenny, Kathleen Pettigrew, and she doesn't fit the stereotype of the sort of MI6 debutante who worked in British intelligence. And when we see Miss Moneypenny on, on the screen, when I'm talking Sean Connery and, and Roger Moore that, you know, she's seen as wearing her pearls, her hair is impeccable, you get the idea that this is somebody who's grown up being taught how to hold a champagne glass and British etiquette down to a T. But Kathleen Pettigrew didn't come from that upper class background. I quickly found out that she actually came from a very working class, top end of the working class background. I mean, her grandfather was a what I would call a Bermondsey geezer and had a very interesting early start in life. He'd actually stolen, I can't remember what the item was, but he'd stolen something, been arrested and then was imprisoned for six months, along with several strokes of the whip. So this is the kind of family on one side that, that she, that she came from very working class roots. She lived with her parents and older sister above the family business off George's Court, which still exists today off the Strand. It was bombed and most of it has been rebuilt. I think the pub still is there, but most of it is all now modern buildings, a very sort of narrow cut through alley. But during Kathleen's early years would have been a hive of people walking through. And there were shops there and her parents owned a sort of haberdashery kind of grocery kind of shop, and they lived in just a couple of rooms above that. So it was a very humble existence. And a story of a woman who was self made, a self made, professional woman who had done well at school thanks to her parents, who'd put her into the best school that they possibly could. And from there she probably went to one of the Pitman training Colleges, which a lot of young women did, and through that got a position in Special Branch, which is where her older sister happened to be working in the registry. And she became the personal assistant to the head of Special Branch, a chap called Basil Thompson. And during the First World War was right at the forefront of the counter intelligence work in terms of tracking down with MI5 German agents on British soil and then seeing it through to their arrest and then their prosecution. So that was her sort of baptism into the secret world. And then from there, after the war, at some point, probably when Basil Thompson left his job, that she then made her way into MI6, because a woman with that particular skill set and knowledge would have been very attractive to MI5 or MI6. And she then went to work for, for MI6 and that's where she then made her career for, for 30, 40 years, which is quite incredible. And literally rose to become one of C's most trusted inner circle.

[Rachel Dinning]

How much power or influence did she have, do you think?

[Claire Hubbard Hall]

Well, it's, it's, I mean, when you work on MI6, it's always very hard to quantify and support with any kind of credible statement because of course, Mi6 hasn't officially released any of its records into the National Archives. There are some of its records which have, which appear in other department files within the National Archives. So we, I can't, I wasn't able to actually look at the full range like I did with, with MI5, say, for example. So it's very hard to determine her influence. But from those files that have managed to get past the weeders in the Foreign Office and have slipped through into the National Archives, and there are a few of them, you start to see that everything passed her desk.

[Rachel Dinning]

That's right. I think you even said in the book that she might have been the shorthand responsible for writing up the account of another female spy, Marta Hari's interrogation in London ahead of her execution in France.

[Claire Hubbard Hall]

Yes.

[Rachel Dinning]

Is that right?

[Claire Hubbard Hall]

No, absolutely. So 1916, Marta Hari and Kathleen Pettigrew are probably sat rooms away from each other when Mata Hari is brought in to be interrogated. And the transcript of her interrogation, while it doesn't have any of the initials that certain other interrogations do, the women who sat in, it was most likely women who sat in on these interrogations with Basil Thompson and any other bods from MI5, etc. Who are questioning these individuals. There would have been a shorthand secretary, usually behind a curtain in the room, taking down word for word the questions and the responses. And some of those shorthand secretaries put their initials in one of the corners of the documents. But for Marta Hari's, there aren't any initials. However, given the fact that I was able to find Kathleen's initials for a number of interrogations that Basil Thompson conducted, During the First World War, I think it's probable 95% certain that Kathleen would have been the woman who sat in and took the notes during the meeting. Either way, there's some connection there between those two women, which is quite incredible, really, because you have Marta Hari, who, after she's executed in 1917, the idea of Marta Hari, not the actual woman that she was, but the idea of this sexualized femme fatale, because, of course, all the stories that are written about her are written by men, so they produce this sexualized image of Marcia Hari, who then becomes the stereotype for women in intelligence. And then, of course, you have, on the opposite, Kathleen Pettigrew, who actually is one of these real women on the other side. And of course, they're completely two very different pictures.

[Rachel Dinning]

Absolutely.

[Claire Hubbard Hall]

Yet the Mata Hari myth has so much more power.

[Rachel Dinning]

And would you say that's where this sort of legacy of female spies as being these femme fatales originates from, as well as perhaps James Bond?

[Claire Hubbard Hall]

Absolutely. I think that idea of this highly sexualised femme fatale is born out of the books that are written about Mahari, all by men. Some of them, I think, are produced while she's still living as well. So this exotic dancer who takes men to bed to get their secrets. And this basically, obviously, then affects popular culture, moving on from that period of this idea of this vampish kind of image of a female spy. And some historians have blamed Mata Hari for this, but of course it's not her fault. It's those that have written about her who've created this myth. When you actually drill down to who she was as a woman, her story is actually a very sad one and is completely different. Doesn't meet, you know, the reality and the fiction are completely two very different things.

[Rachel Dinning]

I wanted to talk about another woman spy. So Winifred Spink, who was the first female officer ever sent to Russia. Firstly, why did we want to send her to Russia?

[Claire Hubbard Hall]

Very, very good question. So it all comes down to who's a Russian linguist? So 1916, she was sent out. So this is before the Russian Revolution. And of course, she there when this happens as well. So she. She witnesses so many things. As a sort of relatively young woman in her sort of late 20s, 30s, she was a linguist, and a brilliant linguist at that. So she was fluent in French, German, Russian. I think there was some Italian in there as well. She studied French at the Soborn. Incredibly intelligent, and had come to the notice of Mansfield. Cumming was personally interviewed by him because they needed more Russian linguists, but they Also needed, I guess again the clerical route comes in. They needed someone who could type as well. So that was part and parcel the reason of why she was sent out there. But she was the only woman working in that office. But she was actually paid, she did actually get eventually paid the same as her male colleagues. Which is, I think sheds a positive light on MI6 in terms of that they recognized her ability rather than paving into stereotypes and thinking, well she's a woman, she should be paid less. She actually was paid the same as her male colleagues, but it was because she was a Russian linguist. I'm not sure she realized how challenging at posting it was going to be. I'm sure with hindsight she would have, would have said that she would have gone if she had have known because she was that kind of strong character. But it was a very, very difficult posting because of course as she's out there and her work was basically keeping an eye and cataloguing and indexing and logging every piece of information of every traveler that was traveling from Russia back to Britain.

[Rachel Dinning]

And one of those potentially was Rasputin. Winifred Spink may have had information about his death.

[Claire Hubbard Hall]

Yes. You write about this again, so piecing together as the counter intelligence officer all these little pieces of information and you start to find the glue perhaps or a tiny piece of the jigsaw puzzle that adds something to an already existing puzzle. And that of course is the death of Rasputin, the Russian mystic who sort of embedded himself within the Tsar's family and exerted huge influence, especially over the Tsarina, but wasn't a positive influence as we know. It's a very well known episode within history. The evidence is not fully concrete, but I think the assumption, the conclusion now is that British intelligence did play a role in Rasputin's death. And of course it was individuals that Winnie was working alongside. And Winnie had kept a diary throughout the entirety of her life, which was an incredible document to uncover when I contacted her family, who were fully aware of what Winnie had done in Russia and for the rest of the First World War and throughout her life. Incredible woman. I wish I could have met her. But she had noted in her diary, which was quite, it was out of character. There were two notes made at the beginning of the diary which stated Rasputin's name, address, and then also the addresses of the cafes that he frequented, which was kind of an odd thing to find at the beginning of someone's diary. But then when I read the diary entries for the night of Rasputin's death, Winnie notes again, a very out of character entry that she went for a joyride with an unnamed driver, who I assume is somebody who she worked alongside again in British intelligence in Petrograd, who she would later become engaged to, didn't get married to their event, unfortunately, but went for a joyride around the city in the mission car. And the mission only had one car and for that to be noted in the diary, one, it was incredibly out of character because it was a naughty thing to do. But obviously there was a clear plan behind why on that night Winnie, along with this unnamed male driver, would go for a joyride. Well, of course, if anybody threw question or suspicion on the British intelligence mission, they could say, well, it wasn't us, how could we have done it? Because Winnie was going, driving around the city in the mission car, so they couldn't have been involved in transporting Rasputin's body to the river, which is where they found him in an ice hole. So it just seemed very interesting. Yes, an interesting coincidence that clearly, I think with Winnie noting that in her diary that, that she was an intelligent woman, she'll have realized why. I don't think the suggestion to go on a joyride would have been her idea, it will have been her male companion. So there was a clear design in terms of coming up with a cover story of why it couldn't have been the British. But yes, so there are all these wonderful sort of anecdotal hints of colour that when you start finding these women's private collections and diaries, that starts to add more color to the story. But obviously, again, that you can't say for 100% certainty, but it certainly makes you think.

[Rachel Dinning]

Absolutely, I'm aware. We're getting towards the end of the podcast now, so I want to ask you which woman who's worked in intelligence haven't we talked about, but is absolutely worth knowing about?

[Claire Hubbard Hall]

Oh, gosh, there's so many to choose from, but I think I will have to go with Rita Windsor. Rita Windsor, again, I'm sticking with MI6, but she was one of the early identified officers, female officers working within MI6 during the second World War. And her story is incredible and you can read it in full in the book. It's told over several chapters alongside her colleague and long lifetime friend, Ina Molesworth. She's basically, I would describe her as MI6's brilliant travel quartermaster because she is the, the woman that is able to get, she's able to infiltrate and exfiltrate agents, officers from anywhere to anywhere. Her travel planning is supremo that the movement of all the spies during the Second World War is facilitated in with respect to Britain is down to Rita Windsor, which is awesome. But she's also running agents at the same time out of Lisbon. And one of the agents that she's running is a chap called Otto John, who was a German. He was involved with the Stauffenberg plot and she manages to save his life after the fail Stauffenberg plot and get him out of Germany. He, after hearing of her death after the Second World War in the seventies, makes a sort of pilgrimage to her home in the south of Britain, to the house that she lived in with her friend Ina Molesworth, to say thank you, a belated thank you for saving his life. But what's super interesting about Rita Windsor and I said more of her story is to be told, is that her career spanned into the Cold War. Her cover with Ina Molesworth was that at the end of the Second World War, she supposedly left MI6 and set up a very high end luxury travel agency, blandly named International Services. And this wasn't a travel agency that went to the Costa del Sol. This went to very kind of interesting places, shall we say. So it took small groups of foreign office type individuals to places like Russia, South America. They were the first travel agency, one of the first travel agencies to be permitted into China when it opened its doors to visitors in the early 60s. And she could provide introductions to certain individuals. And this travel agency is basically used from what I can confidently say as an MI6 cover. But yeah, so I think there is more to come in terms of the Cold War stories of some of these women's careers. Just unfortunately, I think we need a little bit more time for them to, to come to the surface, but I'm hopeful that they will.

[Rachel Dinning]

That might be another book in the future, possibly. Well, as we're at the end of the podcast, I want to mention the fact that in the news recently, people might have heard that the next boss of MI6 will be a woman for the first time. At the time our listeners are hearing this podcast, we might know who it is. So Claire, I wanted to ask you, how did we get to this point and I suppose also how should we view Women's Spies and their legacy?

[Claire Hubbard Hall]

Two big questions, two massive questions. I'll try and tie them together, really, because I guess the legacy is that achievement of that coveted role of seeing that the first woman take up the appointment as C in MI6, which MI6? His is coming last in the race, unfortunately, Compared to its sister organizations, it's been 116 years since the Secret Service Bureau and Agnes Blake to then now seeing the first woman appointed, that's a long time to see a woman finally shatter, take a sledgehammer to that glass ceiling. And I just hope that, that it's a long term change, that it's not just a one hit wonder, that we do actually start to see more longer term change for women's equality within MI6. And I think that achievement, whoever that individual is, we're told that the reported frontrunner is Dame Barbara Woodward, who I think would be an excellent choice despite some of her critics in the press. I think this should be a moment to be celebrated rather than questioned. The three women who have made the shortlist are there because they are all worthy, they are all worthy of holding that post, of heading up the organisation. The other two are internal candidates. We don't know who they are obviously because they're serving MI6 officers. Perhaps they're one of Richard Moore's deputies, which we're told three of the four are women, so perhaps it might be the woman who is Q or one of the other women who hold those, those deputy roles, but who knows? But they really are standing on the shoulders of those pioneering women in MI6's history, from Agnes Blake, Kathleen Pettigrew, Rita Windsor. Teddy Dunlop is another early MI6 officer, from the Second World War through to the Cold War. Daphne park, who was the woman to reach perhaps the top position before the deputies that we're told exist now. She became controller of western hemisphere in 1975. So the change has been rolling on, it's been a glacial pace. You know, I think that's probably, we can say that, but it's happening and that's exciting. And I personally can't wait for the news to come and to see who actually has been appointed in this historic moment. That was historian and author Claire Hubbard hall speaking to Rachel Dinning. Claire's book, her Secret Service the Forgotten Women of British Intelligence is out now.

[TJ Watt]

And Doug, here we have the Limu emu in its natural habitat helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Uh, limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us? Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings vary unwritten by Liberty Mutual insurance company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts. For a limited time at McDonald's, get a Big Mac Extra Value meal for $8. That means two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun and medium fries. And a drink. We may need to change that jingle. Prices and participation may vary.