ian-pegg_2_01-13-2025_191118

The Countdown is 3, 2, 1 The Authors of History is a Pegasus Studio Promotions recording Welcome to the Authors of History Podcast my name is Ian Pegg and for those of you that haven't heard of this podcast this is the first episode this is a podcast that celebrates Authors of History. I'll be talking to authors from all genres of history about their work about what motivated them to write about the subjects they write about about their research about perhaps new projects that are coming forward and we'll also get them to recommend a history book that we all should read. There'll be authors from modern day right back to early times so keep listening to the Authors of History Podcast and on this episode of the Authors of History Podcast the first episode I am delighted to welcome Dr Helen Fry who has agreed to join me for this very first special episode. Helen has authored or edited over 25 books covering the social history of the second world war including British intelligence and the secret war. She is a leading authority on the secret listeners who works at special eavesdropping sites operated by British intelligence during World War II and we will come on to that as some of the books that Helen has brilliantly written are on that subject. She is also the official biographer of the MI6 Spymaster Colonel Thomas Joseph Kendrick so Helen is one of the eminent authors and historians of our time. Welcome Helen and thank you for joining me on the Authors of History Podcast. Thank you that is so kind and thank you for joining me. I just want to get straight into this so you've written over 25 or so books or been editing them all but where did you start? What was the first book or what motivated you to start writing about history? I was inspired by a book that was written about the course of the case so I didn't take it seriously in my own career. I had a mix of both books but I've changed it now a bit since I was 13 years and I think I was very much an ethical journalist. My parents didn't otherwise and that's the way I worked on the book but around 15 or 20 years ago it was all about those kinds of things and it took a lot of time. It took a lot of time actually to get their trust. A world of silence was on the up. They wanted to realise that there were loads of people behind them. They left that for the next year. They've got families and they've got their own comrades. I got their confidence over a number of years and they come to me again and that's what got me and then after a while they started to see themselves as writing writers. Is there that moment where you talk to all these people and the light goes on and you go actually I should write a book on this. You've talked about gathering the information but how did you then go about setting that first book out in terms of actually this is how it needs to look and this is the story that we need to tell? Wow. They had to go all the way to the south coast and they were all the way up there. I thought people thought I was boasting. Until after a few weeks I thought I was boasting. Until after a few weeks I started to get boasting and people started to get hold of the book. Wow. And there they were in some sort of uniform not yet ready to go off to war. So all our work was set up and then they said to us how, so that we could teach them the importance of intelligence. And then it was quite a while before we could get on with the teaching. I think that's the bit that fascinates me when I talk to authors about it's that one thought or that one conversation right at the beginning of their career and suddenly you're down what we call a rabbit hole that ends up being endless because as you peel one layer back something else appears and then you start to ask yourself questions. I think what's really important in any author's work and the thing that I love about your writing is it makes me think. It's easy to read but it makes me think. Now that brings us on to your intelligence books. Now I think in terms of history and the intelligence, the knowledge of British intelligence in World War II, these are absolutely must read books. The books on secret listeners are really important. How did you find the research in trying to get behind what that was around? Because I would imagine it being about secret listeners, they're quite interesting files to try and get into. So that plan is still what we have to go through. There's a lot that we have to do there. The impact is enormous. Have a nice discussion about it. It started until just beyond the end of the war. It's like we're going to keep trying. So it's a really important intelligence archive to write in wars across America and Australia and Canada and there is what one would do but I also think they prepared us for the early Cold War and waited for the Cold War as well. So we would post those days to keep the archive complete of a lot of threats and that kind of thing. So that's really what sparked the intelligence archive. I had little to do with it. It was really quick. We were one of the last survivors of the Cold War by everyone. And if it wasn't for the Cold War we wouldn't be here. But again I think it's important for that to take everything out and actually that history of getting down to zero was a time when I didn't know the way to do it. So I think it's important ... ... ... I think what's really important for me there is that we have to recognise the contribution of other nations and in this case Germans who helped secure the victory of World War II in their own way. And that must have been difficult for them. I know you talked about someone anti-Nazi, anti-Hitler but they would still have families that would be back in Germany and they would be worried about all of that in terms of the work that they were doing. Did they ever talk about that in terms of relation to the books and the right to read it? ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... That must have been very difficult in terms of the job that they were doing ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...