![]() Most of the women were enrolled in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, which is now the Princess Royal's Volunteer Corps. At their interviews they were told not to tell anyone where they'd been or what they were doing. As they both spoke French perfectly, they applied to join the SOE. Initially the girls found it difficult to get any sort of a job. ![]() After three weeks, they found passage on a freighter bound for Scotland. They were then told to go across the Spanish border into Portugal and contact the British Embassy to see if they could get them passage on a ship headed for Britain. Of course, the Germans wanted to keep all foreigners away from the ports, so they were stopped and sent back home. They got British passports from the consulate and set off for Marseilles. The girls were just kicking their heels, so they decided to go to England as well. The younger of the two boys decided to go back to England and join the air force. There was very little work, and there was always the threat of being sent on as forced labour to Germany. The Germans moved them from their house in Nice, up into the mountains near the Italian border, so they could keep an eye on them. In that respect, the girls were better off than the boys.īut even though the mother was French-born and not a foreigner, they regarded her as one because she was married to a British man. Jacqueline had done some schooling in England and adapted very well to France. Francis, the eldest, was a very shy boy who had problems that stayed with him for the rest of his life. When the two younger children were under school age, the family decided to move to France, where their mother's parents lived. Then came Jacqueline, then the younger son, and then Didi. I think, because she was the youngest, she was probably spoiled by the others. Introduce us.Īccording to Didi, she was very naughty as a child. Your two main characters are the sisters Jacqueline and Eileen "Didi" Nearne. Churchill said it was "to set Europe ablaze." The SEO was set up by Churchill in 1942 as a secret organisation that would drop people into occupied countries and create havoc. And one day his wife took the dog out for a walk and discovered where he worked because as soon as the dog got to the entrance, it started pulling on the lead like mad to be taken into the building. He used to take his dog into the office sometimes. Apparently, it was so secret that his wife didn't know where he worked. The girls were in the French section, which was looked after by Colonel M aurice Buckmaster. Take us inside this secret, wartime British organisation. The SOE was housed on the same street that Sherlock Holmes lived, Baker Street. But it will not be a familiar acronym to most of our readers. As a wireless operator, Eileen had to remain in the shadows to make sure no one knew what she was doing.įull disclosure, my father was in the SOE. And I think he was right, especially in the sort of work that the two sisters did, because they were really on their own. ![]() He said that he thought women had a particularly cool and lonely courage. He was a famous writer in his day and used to interview prospective members of the SOE. ![]() Where did the phrase "a cool and lonely courage" originate? And how does it capture the spirit of these female SOE agents? Talking from her home in England, Susan Ottway, author of A Cool and Lonely Courage: The Untold Story of Sister Spies in Occupied France, describes how sisters Jacqueline and Eileen Nearne were recruited and trained what the words farmer, wizard, and bricklayer have in common and why she admires these modern-day Amazons.
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