- During World War II,
I was a pupil at the [French school] in London,
but only cheating the ripe old age of 18.
I was obliged to abandon my studies
and either join the armed forces
or work in munitions factory.
Well, that option did not thrill me.
So I decided to become a member
of the women's Royal Naval Service because I liked the hat.
(crowd laughing)
I thought it was most seductive,
but when I went to sign-on,
I was taken aside and closeted
in a kind of windowless broom cupboard
with a high ranking army officer
who began asking me an awful lot of questions,
which had nothing to do with the Navy.
He was leaping like a demented kangaroo
in and out of four languages.
And he seemed very surprised that I could keep up.
He sent me to a large building in Central London.
Oh, I knew it well, but like the hearts of people
who pass by every day, never had I imagined,
or even suspected that this was the headquarters
of Churchill’s secret army.
And the behind those walls members of every occupied country
were organizing acts of sabotage
and the influence chased them into enemy territory at night
of secret agents, by parachute, fishing boat for Looker
and submarine. Without realizing what had happened,
I had been recruited into the hidden world
of secret agents on special missions,
but I never got my seductive hat.
(crowd laughing)
I was affected to F for front section.
It was an exhausting but exciting swilling,
exhilarating life, full of action and emotion.
We lived some very intense moments.
I got to know an awful lot of agents.
And I shared many confidences
with those who were about to leave.
They told me of their concerns with their families,
many of them were married with young children
of their own apprehension of torture and of death.
They knew they only had a 50% chance of coming back
and they were afraid. Brave men are always afraid.
Courage isn't the absence of fear.
It's the willingness, of guts if you like, to face the fear,
they faced their fears and they left.
I remember one, he was a Jew, a radio operator,
and he was going in on a second mission.
Well, for a Jew to go in a tour was extremely dangerous,
but many of them did.
We had quite a few Jewish agents,
but a radio operator, a second mission?
A radio operator was the most stressful, hazardous,
dangerous mission of all.
He lived on his nerves.
He could never relax.
He was always on the run,
always with the Gestapo, just a couple of steps behind him.
He needed nerves of steel because once infiltrated
his life expectancy was six weeks.
I was with this agent on the night before he left,
oh, there was no romantic association.
I was just keeping him company
I've told you he was an old man.
He was almost 35.
(crowd laughing)
During the evening, he drew out of his pocket,
a small velvet box.
And inside there was a gold chain with a star of David
and a dove of peace hanging on it.
And he said, "I'd like you to have this."
Thank you so much.
I said, I'm terribly touched
but I couldn't possibly accept it.
And he looked so sad.
So disappointed.
He said, "Please do, oh, please do
"all my family in France has perished
"in a German concentration camp.
"I have nobody left in the world.
"And I'd like to think that somebody remembers me.
"Somebody perhaps even thinks of me when I'm over there."
So I took his little box
promising to give it back to him when he returned,
but he didn't return.
Those who did return were taken immediately
for a debriefing.
And I often accompanied the two debriefing officers.
And for me, it was a revelation
to see that different reactions,
some returned with their nerves
absolutely shattered in shreds.
Their hands were shaking uncontrollably
as they lit cigarette after cigarette
and others were as cool as cucumbers.
And I realized then that we all have a breaking point
and we can never know until we're faced with a situation.
What that breaking point actually is,
perhaps that is why departing agents
were strongly urged to take the cyanide pill,
which was always hidden somewhere around that person
before they left, it will kill them within two minutes.
I grew up attending various debriefing sessions.
Many of those agents weren't very much older than I
hearing their incredible stories, witnessing their courage,
their total dedication.
I changed almost overnight from a teenager
and I became a woman.
One Saturday evening, it was a snowy evening.
It was in early February
I was told that I was to leave the next morning
and go down to Bouley, now Bouley was the last
of the many secret training schools
at this secret training schools
with doctors all over England and future agents
attended each one in turn
during their long tough six months training,
it took eight to nine months to train a radio operator.
It was inhabited deep in the new forest.
Only six women worked at Bouley during the War
and I am the last survivor.
We will use this decoys and you won't believe this,
but the local people hadn't remotest idea what was going on
under their very noses.
We worked in the neighboring sea side towns of Bournemouth
and South Hampton.
My pitch was usually Bournemouth
and it was there that we taught future agents,
how to follow someone, find out where they were going,
who they were seeing without being detected,
how to detect if someone were following them
and throw them off. How to pass messages
without any sign of recognition or even moving our lips.
Now, this took place on the beach, in the park,
on benches, in the town, in telephone booths
and in the tea rooms above the Gamont Cinema.
The last exercise was reserved for those future agents,
whom the instructors thought might talk.
And as the instructors were with them all the time.
They watched their every movement.
They analyzed it all.
And if they thought that they might talk,
they would have a carefully pre-arranged set up meeting
between a decoy and a future agent
in one of the two grand hotels in Bournemouth,
the meeting would take place in the bar or the lounge
followed by an intimate dinner (indistinct)
it was our job to get them to talk
to betray themselves in fact.
The British didn't talk much.
Foreignness sometimes did especially the young ones.
Oh, I understood they were lonely.
They were far from their homes and their families.
They didn't even know if they would have a home
or a country, even a country to go back to
once the war was over.
And it was flattering to have a young girl
hanging on their every word.
Well, of course, if I had taken part in the earlier exercise
'cause I couldn't take part in that one
because they would know me.
And one of the others took over
now before they were returned to London
at the end of their month in Bouley.
And it was in London in their country section
that their fate would be decided.
Each one had an interview with our commandant,
Commander Woolrich,
We call him Wooly bags behind his back.
He had all the reports
from all the different training schools
and he made his report and that went back to London,
but his report carried weight.
Now, if they had talked, during an interview
a door opened and I forgot, the commandant walked in
and Woolybags would say,
"Do you know this woman?"
And they realized they'd been tricked.
Most of them took it well, but I'd never forget one.
He was a Dan.
Oh, glorious blonded Donis.
(crowd laughing)
I think he was rather taken with me, well, I must admit,
I weighed about 12 kilos,
less and I didn't have white hair at the time.
When I entered the room, he looked at me, surprise,
and then almost pain.
And finally, Brian Fiorio rose in his chair.
And he said, "You bitch."
Well, no woman likes to be called a bitch.
(crowd laughing)
But as Willie Banks said to me,
if he can't resist talking to a pretty face over here,
he's not going to resist what he's over there.
And it won't only be his life, which is in danger.
It would be many others.
I think it was then that I realized that,
my whole life was a lie.
I lied to everybody I had to,
to those agents to my friends to my family.
My mother thought I worked
for the ministry of agriculture and fisheries.
She died at 80 without ever knowing the truth
because all of us at the secret army
were under the Official Secrets Act for 60 years
until those files were opened in year 2000.
And then most of us were dead anyway.
On the eve of my 19th birthday,
I fell madly, hopelessly in love with an agent.
He just, he was one of our best agents, a crack.
He just returned from a very successful, second mission
and he was adulated.
He was a legend in the section.
I'd heard all about him, but I never thought I'd meet him.
And then suddenly one evening he was there
and it was as if our eyes locked across a crowded room
and we were irresistably drawn one towards the other.
I couldn't believe that he could love me.
He was handsome.
He was 12 years older than I.
He was a hero.
He must've met many beautiful, sophisticated,
elegant gorgeous women -- well he had, he told me,
but he said, he'd been looking for me.
Our idyll lasted three months
until he left on his next mission.
I was terrified.
It was a fairly dangerous mission
and they said only he could carry it off,
but I was so afraid, but he reassured me.
He said he was a survivor
and he promised me that this would be his last mission.
And when he came back, he'll never leave me again,
we'd grow old together.
The day he left, we had lunch,
just the two of us in a little intimate restaurant.
We both knew that it would be many months
perhaps before we'd be together again,
we kept emotion out of our conversations.
I think we're both afraid of breaking down.
I know if we hadn't,
I would have broken down and I'd have begged him not to go.
I imagine you've all been in love.
Can you picture what it's like to be terribly in love
and know that all you have is a few hours
this moment in time. He took me back to the office
and we said goodbye at the bus stop.
I don't think we even said goodbye.
As I walked through the door, I turned,
he was standing on the pavement, watching me.
He smiled and reached his hand
to his red parachuted Sperry, a final salute.
He was infiltrated that night
but I never saw him again.
The mission was successful, but he didn't return
and I was left with a little cameo of a perfect love.
Perfect perhaps, because it had been so brief.
When the news that I dreaded came through,
they tried to comfort me.
They told me I should be proud.
He was incredibly courageous, a wonderful man
who had realized that there was a force of evil in the world
that had to be annhilated, but that freedom has a price tag
he paid that price with his life,
but I didn't want a dead hero.
I didn't want a medal in a velvet box.
I wanted Bill. All these agents in the secret army
were volunteers, they didn't have to go,
but they went. Almost half of them never returned.
Like Bill, they gave their youth, (indistinct)
The hopes and dreams for the future,
they gave their all for us.
They gave their today so that we might have our tomorrow.
(crowd applauding)
Please don't applaud me.
Don't applaud me, I don't deserve it
applaud those who didn’t come back.
(crowd applauding)