Tessa Dunlop

Tessa’s first book, Bletchley Girls, weaved together the lives of fifteen women who were all selected to work in Britain’s most secret organisation, Bletchley Park. Her next book, Century Girls, commemorated 100 years of women gaining the vote and featured six women born in 1918 or before who didn’t just witness that change, they lived it.

Army Girls is her most recent book and is the intimate story of the final few women who served in World War II and are still alive to tell their tale. They were female soldiers in a war Britain wanted to fight without conscripting women. It was a vain hope, by December 1941 for the first time in British history women were called up and a generation of girls came of age in khaki, serving king and country. Barbara trained to drive army-style in giant trucks and Grace swapped her servant’s pinafore for battledress and a steel hat, Martha turned down officer status for action on a gun-site and Olivia won the Croix de Guerre in France.