Helen Fry
on her latest book
The White Lady
Thursday January 29
at Avenue House
Historian Helen Fry will reveal the astonishing story of the two most important MI6 networks behind the enemy lines in the two world wars: the White Lady (‘La Dame Blanche’) and Clarence Service networks in Belgium. Ordinary Belgians risked their lives and found ingenious ways to smuggle intelligence out of German-occupied Belgium for MI6. From knitting coded messages into jumpers and writing messages in invisible ink, to running entire sections behind the German lines, they operated as agents, spies, couriers and heads of intelligence sectors. In WW2, operators in the field sent over 800 radio messages to London and delivered more than a thousand reports, including groundbreaking information on Hitler’s secret weapons, the V-1 and V-2.
Dr Fry has written over 25 books on British intelligence and espionage. Her latest book, The White Lady: The Story of British Secret Service Networks Behind German Lines, was published in October. Her previous book, Women in Intelligence: The Hidden History of Two World Wars. received the Silver Award from Military History Matters Book Award. Her other bestselling books include The Walls have Ears, about bugging the Nazis; Spymaster: The Man who Saved MI6; and MI9, about the British Secret Service for escape and evasion. In 2023 she received The Lifetime Achievement Award in Jewish Military History and Education, and she is an ambassador for the Military Intelligence Museum.
The meeting will take place in Avenue House, located at Stephens House and Gardens, 17 East End Road, Finchley N3 3QE. It will begin at 7.30 pm