Jonathan Thomas (00:12) Welcome back to the Anglotopia podcast. The podcast for people who love British travel, history and culture. I'm your host, Jonathan Thomas. And today we are diving deep into the hidden corners of 20th century British history. With us today is author and historian Julie Summers, one of Britain's foremost social historians and the author of 14 works of nonfiction. that bring extraordinary stories to life. Julie specializes in uncovering the untold experiences of ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances, particularly during World War II, which happens to be my area of interest. So her most famous book is Jam Busters, which inspired ITV's hugely successful drama series, Homefires, which captivated over six million viewers with its portrayal of the Women's Institute during the war. Her other acclaimed works include Our Uninvited Guests, about the secret lives of Britain's requisitioned country houses during the war, another particularly favorite subject of mine. And most recently, British Vogue, the biography of an icon, the first ever comprehensive history. Show it to the viewers. First ever comprehensive history of the legendary magazine from 1916 to the present day. Thank you. We're going to chat today about her remarkable career as a historian and storyteller, explore the fascinating research behind her most popular books, and discuss what it was like seeing Jam Busters turned into a hit TV series, and find out what hidden corners of British history she's uncovered that deserves to be better known. Welcome, Julie. ⁓ Julie Summers (01:47) Thank you so much, Jonathan. Delightful to be here and hello everybody. Thank you for listening. Jonathan Thomas (01:53) Thank you for being on the Engeltovia podcast. So hopefully this is fun. ⁓ So I'll dive right into the questions here. I've kind of chosen to do like a survey of all of your books rather than focus on one particular one, mostly because I haven't read the latest one. So we're going to do all the books. ⁓ So you've described yourself as a biographer and historian, but most importantly, a storyteller. Julie Summers (02:13) That's life. Jonathan Thomas (02:21) How do you balance rigorous historical research with compelling narrative storytelling? how has that changed over your 14 books? Julie Summers (02:31) On the one hand it has barely changed at all, but on the other hand of course I've refined my craft and I've gained a lot more experience. I think the definition of good history is the key is in the word history, story, because we learn, we know, we understand the world by stories. We hear stories as children, we understand stories as adults, and you learn the very best facts through stories. And so I, as a... non-fiction writer, I'm dealing with facts, I cannot make anything up, I have to be absolutely rigorous. If I say that the Second World War started on the 14th of September, that's a joke, it didn't, it started on the 3rd of September in Britain. I have to be absolutely accurate, but what I have as a creative non-fiction writer is the ability to bring in a little bit of drama. So for example, I'm totally fixated about the weather, in fact I'm known in the family as the biggest weather nerd of all times. So if I'm describing a scene that happened on a certain day, I will go right back to the original meteorological forecasts from, for example, recently the 17th of October 1924, when it really mattered to me whether it was raining or not. And as it happens, it wasn't raining. So I could imbue the whole scene with a little bit of extra drama by looking at the detail. So I'm playing with facts, but I'm using some of those facts to create. ⁓ a narrative that has a bit more colour around it. Jonathan Thomas (04:00) That's really interesting because weather is an interesting hook because everyone understands weather. So you can immediately imagine the scene. that's really. Julie Summers (04:08) You can do weather, you can do smells. So if you're describing, for example, a school classroom in the 1940s, you've only got to mention the word carbolic soap and a whole generation of people, you know, hold their nose and go, oh my goodness, I remember that. Or if you're talking about Scotland and you describe the midges, the clegs as the Scots call them, you people immediately know that it's a day in August and it's itching, itching. So you can use little details from nature. really to help to bring out the colour in the story. Jonathan Thomas (04:41) So your work consistently kind of focuses on people faced with extraordinary circumstances. And what draws you to these stories and how do you identify which untold stories from history might be worth sharing with people? Julie Summers (04:56) Well, I'm deeply fascinated by the untold stories of history because that's what happens to normal people. And I hope I'm not speaking out of turn when I say, you you and I are normal people. And when things happen to normal people, for example, specifically the Second World War, which was total war in Britain, people find hidden depths of strength and character, which is extraordinary. And I find it endlessly fascinating. So when I wrote the book about the Women's Institute in wartime, I was just constantly staggered by the resourcefulness and the determination of women to carry on. And when I was writing about the bridge on the river Kwai and the men who were working in those wretched prison camps on the river, the railway, more than anything else, I was struck by the enormous humanity of man to man when men were suffering from horrible diseases like dysentery and tropical ulcers. And they found in their character a softness which you don't always associate with for example with soldiers or with officers in the British army but because they were in a totally male dominated environment with no women anywhere to be seen they they got this softer side of themselves so I find that kind of change to the ordinary extraordinary and and very very compelling Jonathan Thomas (06:16) Yeah, that's an interesting story. I was recently ill and rewatched the film. And what struck me is how not just the British soldiers, but the Japanese soldiers are also all kind of prisoners in the same situation. ⁓ Julie Summers (06:34) they were absolutely. And the thing about the Thailand Burma Railway is that most of the guards on the railway were Koreans and Koreans had been treated very badly by the Japanese. So there was a hierarchy of brutality on the railway that was very difficult. I mean, it's a very difficult book to write. And I, of course, had never been I wasn't a man. I'd never been a prisoner. I've never starved and I've never been forced to work. So it was an interesting book to write to try and get. under the skin of the people who'd been involved in that. And that's where I found extraordinary about humanity that came out so strongly. And it really made me think just how resourceful people can be even in extreme situations. Jonathan Thomas (07:16) and it's those layers and layers of class and story and culture that make those stories so interesting. So you studied at Bristol University in the Courtauld Institute of Art, then worked at the Royal Academy in the Ashmolean in Oxford before becoming a full-time writer. How did your, that's quite a pedigree, I must say. I mean, that's, ⁓ How did your curatorial background shape your approach to historical writing? Julie Summers (07:44) Oh, what a lovely question. It shaped it by making me absolutely clear that accuracy and fact and detail was a paramount importance. But the other thing, being a curator, you have to choose what you're going to show. If you are doing, for example, an exhibition of works by Henry Moore, he created over 1300 works on paper alone. You have to be able to curate and pick out the very best that are telling that particular story. So it was very valuable to be... Jonathan Thomas (07:51) Thank Julie Summers (08:13) having had sort of 20 years of training of picking and selecting something that would follow a particular narrative. Jonathan Thomas (08:19) Forgive me, this question isn't on the list, but do you have any secrets or tidbits about working at the ashmolion that might be interesting? Julie Summers (08:28) The Ashmeleon was extraordinary. I had a very small budget to put on exhibitions. I had to put on 15 or 16 exhibitions a year and my exhibition budget was 150 UK pounds, so $200. Not great, but it's remarkable what you can do with a very small amount of money and a wonderful collection. And so I think probably the most impressive exhibition we did was an exhibition of college silver and we got college Jonathan Thomas (08:42) Well. Julie Summers (08:56) colleges from all over the university, over 25 colleges lent wonderful pieces of silver to our exhibition. And it really showed the depth of history in Oxford. I loved that, I loved working with the depth of history in our city. Jonathan Thomas (09:12) Yeah, long time Angotopia fans will know that I have a particular soft spot for Oxford. I've done the, they do summer courses and I try to do those every few years. really, Julie Summers (09:23) Wonderful. I teach on summer courses, so it would be lovely to meet up next time you're in the paper. Jonathan Thomas (09:27) ⁓ which ones do you do? Julie Summers (09:28) I teach at Exeter College and it's a three week summer course and I teach creative non-fiction at intermediate and advanced level. I thoroughly enjoy doing it too. Jonathan Thomas (09:36) Think about that one. So let's talk about your latest book. Now, after you wrote Dressed for War about wartime editor Audrey Withers, what made you want to tackle the entire 108-year history of British vogue? That must have been enormous undertaking. Julie Summers (09:56) It was an enormous undertaking and what happened was that it was during Covid and there was a moment when we could get away from Oxford and go off into the country and have, there were three weeks when we could have a holiday when the restrictions were lifted and I drove to Wales with some friends and on the way back the head of rights at Condé Nast UK, woman called Harriet Wilson rang me on my mobile phone in the car, Chris was driving and she said, how would you like to write the biography of British Vogue? We so loved your book about Audrey. And I thought for a second and I said, yes, absolutely. And she used the word biography. And what she specifically meant was she wanted a book that would look at the character of the magazine, not at the background and the money side and all the sort of shenanigans that get won at Conde Nast, but really put the magazine at the forefront and look at how the editors and their incredibly talented contributors navigated the 20th and early 21st centuries and interpreted that for women. Jonathan Thomas (10:54) So when looking at the, sorry, this isn't on the list, but when looking at the scope of all that history, all the editors, all the parties that make a magazine, how did you find the narrative threats that made an interesting story? Julie Summers (11:11) Well, we'll go back, if I may, to the curating aspect of things. You have to curate these things. You have to decide what your narrative is going to be. And I did it by decade. And so really, it's a social history of the 20th and 21st centuries told through the eyes of the fashion magazine. So I instances from each decade that really mattered. So, for example, in the 20s, it was all about how women were coping in the post-war era. And it was about the flapper girls. It was about the glamour. of that, but also this terrible trenchant sadness of what had happened, war, loss of the men in the First World War. The 30s were about design, sexy, beautiful car design, just lovely. Some of it coming from America, a lot of it beginning to be created in Britain and Italy. 40s, war, 50s, austerity. And you can see how that went on. And then I got to the 60s and I called that chapter Sex and the Season because Vogue was still looking at know, the Deb's and the sort of the British season as it were and keeping its finger on the pulse of the royal family. But at the same time, it was introducing Jean Shrimpton to the world and David Bailey, the photographer and wonderful models and Twiggy and all this sort of glamour that went with the 60s and the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and so forth. So it was a it was a real pivotal chapter that it was the hinge of the century in a way. Jonathan Thomas (12:35) yeah, it's a real microcosm of popular British culture for the span of the 20th century. I don't envy the task of trying to whittle it down. ⁓ Julie Summers (12:45) What I did was I read every single magazine from September 1916 right through to 2024. And I did it absolutely magazine by magazine because every single time the magazine was produced, was the next edition. was the new, was exciting. was what the editor really wanted to convey. And so there was a real sense of excitement right through. And sometimes you'd get an issue where you thought, wow, the editor has absolutely got her finger on the pulse. There's an amazing example in February 1981, when Beatrix Miller had managed to get Lord Snowden to take a photograph of a very young, beautiful Lady Diana Spencer. And that was reproduced in February, 1941. And sure enough, that month, Prince Charles announced her engagement. they were on the button there. But then there was 9-11 and Alexandra Sean, of course, could not have seen 9-11 coming. So it wasn't until November that she was able to run an issue that reflected the horror of 9-11. So it was a really interesting way of looking at the big events that happened in the 20th and 21st centuries and judging how to curate them in a way that would make my readers feel that they were finding out about the magazine, but also through things that they recognized. Jonathan Thomas (14:00) So you were given unprecedented access to the entire Vogue archive. What was the most surprising or revealing document you discovered that changed your understanding of, that maybe changed your thesis that you were exploring? Julie Summers (14:14) Well, I think there were several things. One of them was that the editor from 1960s and 70s and early 80s was a woman called Beatrix Miller, and she absolutely loved her readership. Now, that sounds like a silly thing to say, but she was really passionate about making sure that she communicated with the readers. And she ran surveys, there is survey after survey, almost annual surveys of what the readers thought. And that's hugely revealing because you realize that your average Vogue reader is aged between 15 and 85, honestly. And that was really fascinating too. There was a woman who wrote to her in 1977 and said, you know, I bought, picked up my first copy on Victoria station in September, 1916. sadly I lost some of them in the blitz, but I've still got the full set from the fifties and sixties. So that was a lovely revelation. And the other thing was that I discovered that there there's quite a lot of law in inverted commas that is actually inaccurate. So there's quite a lot about Dorothy Todd. who was the famous editor in the 1920s who got fired, which has become mythologized, but actually I sort of got to the bottom of why she was fired. And then there was a woman called Else per Chante Communale, who was said to be the second editor of and she never was. The second editor of Vogue was a woman called Ruth Davidson, but Else per Chante Communale was the fashion editor. And at that stage, the fashion editor in some ways was more important than the actual editor herself. So I was managing to correct. one or two little, if you like, inaccuracies in the history of Vogue without thumping my top too hard, but just trying to make sure that I had as much accuracy as possible. Jonathan Thomas (15:51) So British Vogue has had a remarkable string of editors, ⁓ from Dorothy Todd to Manj Garland to Audrey Withers, Alyssa Garland, Alexandra Schulman, and we're in it for, hopefully I said all those correctly, who was the most fascinating editor to research and why? Julie Summers (16:08) Goodness, that's such a difficult question. saw that question in your list. Isn't that so great on your list? I thought, goodness, how am going to answer that? You know, I think in a way, the most fascinating editor is Ailsa Garland. She was only editor from 1960 to 1964, but she took folk that had been so dictated by the Second World War, had gone through the 1950s with Audrey Withers at the helm, and Ailsa had come from the Daily Mirror. Jonathan Thomas (16:09) It's your name, Todd. Julie Summers (16:36) had a real sense that this was a moment, a moment when Vogue had to change. It had to stop being quintessentially a British magazine for the middle and upper classes and it had to address youth. Now, Audrey had already introduced various youth features with an editor called Sheila Whetton, but Elsa got it. And she was the one who employed David Bailey and Terence Donovan and Paul Duffy. So she had the real sort of the Holy Trinity of working class photographers. But she also got... what was going on. She got V Dances soon. She picked up on Mary Quant. She loved The Beatles. And so she, in a way, was the most interesting editor because she's been written off as just doing it for four years and really not making very much difference. And actually she made an enormous difference. And she had Bailey do the very first British shoot in Paris. Now that didn't happen until 1963. Imagine that. All the other photo shoots of parish fashion have been done either by Americans or French photographers. Jonathan Thomas (17:36) Well, and forgive me if this question comes off as stupid, I have a knowledge gap here. What is the, is American Vogue very different from British Vogue? Or do they have different qualities, different things that they cover? Julie Summers (17:50) So when they first started, American Vogue was the first Vogue, started in 1892, and Condé Nast wanted to introduce British and, well, he wanted to introduce American Vogue to Britain, Germany, and France, which he did in 1912. And then he was persuaded during the First World War to set up British Vogue and French Vogue, and they were typically known as Am Vogue, Brogue, and Frog. Well, Frog was dropped for obvious reasons, but Am Vogue and British Vogue, really began to have very different characters by about 1940 when the war literally separated them and Edna Woolman Chase, who was the great editor of American Vogue, couldn't exert her influence over British Vogue in the same way she had done previous. And so each of the magazines developed their own character. So American Vogue has always been incredibly chic, very smart, very focused on... commerce and beauty and wonderful clothes and Fifth Avenue and so forth. Whereas British folk has always been slightly quirky. And there were several times when particularly Beatrix Miller and then later Elizabeth Tilberis sort of took the magazine off at a slightly sort of odd angle and you suddenly get a photo shoot styled by Grace Coddington ⁓ photographed in a sort of damp English country garden in the middle of Norfolk because it appealed to her sense of Britishness. and the models are all wearing Wellington boots because it was raining. And that wouldn't appear in American Vogue, for example. So they've definitely got different characters. Jonathan Thomas (19:23) start reading British Vogue as part of my Anglophile journey here. I already read Country Life and other great British magazines. So your book covers everything from wartime austerity to the swinging 60s to the COVID-19 pandemic. How has Vogue's role evolved from being primarily a fashion magazine to what you describe as a chronicle of British identity? Julie Summers (19:48) It's never ever just been a fashion magazine, never, not even from the from the get-go. From 1916, it was addressing what mattered to women. So in the early years, it was addressing the First World War. was literally telling the stories of what women were doing in the First World War. It ran a feature on the first aid nursing humanry. It ran features on women who were running hospitals in the United Kingdom, dealing with wounded and so forth. So all along, been a it has tracked what was mattering. to women in each decade. I think the difference now is that with 24 hour news and social media, Vogue's role as a print magazine is very different from what it was in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and even 80s and 90s. Because don't forget, know, the magazine is prepared three months in advance, whereas today our news is prepared three seconds in advance or sometimes three minutes if we're lucky. So it has a very different role than it used to before 24 hour media. Thank you. Jonathan Thomas (20:49) All right, well now we're going to talk about my favorite book. So, our uninvited guest. ⁓ So, our uninvited guest explores the requisitioning of Britain's country houses during World War II, from Flenham Palace housing schoolboys to polis agents training at Audley End. How did you first discover this largely un-polled aspect of wartime history? What was the thread that you pulled there? Julie Summers (21:13) I was looking at the Hotel Majestic in Harrogate with my son. We'd gone up to Harrogate to look at some war graves. I was doing something for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and we were up at the Hotel Majestic because I believe that my grandfather, great-grandfather, Harry Summers, had lived and died in Harrogate, which is true, he did die in Harrogate, but he didn't die at the Hotel Majestic, he was living at the Prince of Wales down the road. So I went to the Hotel Majestic and talked about their long-term clients and the chap at the hotel said, no, no, no, this hotel was taken over by the Royal Air Force in the war. And I thought, ⁓ that's interesting. And then he said, yeah, and the George down there, that was overtaken by the post office because the British government had Britain been attacked and invaded, were going to send the government and all the major offices of state up to Harrogate because it was far enough away from London and from attack. And I thought, wow, that's incredible, a post office moving from London. So that got my little antenna twiggling. And then I came across the story of Brockett Hall, which was owned by Lord Brockett and was taken over and turned into maternity hospital. And it snowballed from there. And I just, and I was looking for houses where the story was so very much at odds with what the original house was built for. So you mentioned Audley End, it was this vast stately home, enormous Tudor stately home built and then used by the King at one stage in the 17th, 16th century. And there it was covered up in boarding. So it was totally neutral ⁓ visually. And it was used by the Poles to train them for special operations going into Poland in 1944 for the Warsaw uprising. So a terrible tragedy in so many ways, but also a fascinating story of them being trained as special agents. Jonathan Thomas (23:11) So the book reveals some fascinating class collisions. East End women giving birth at Rocket Hall, working class children at the Ross Childs states, what were some of the most dramatic social transformations that you uncovered? Julie Summers (23:26) Well, I mean, I Brockett Hall is one of the most extraordinary stories because the house was owned by Lord Brockett. And Lord Brockett, at that time, it was the second Lord Brockett, was a sympathizer of the Nazis and he had attended Hitler's 50th birthday party. So he wasn't very popular with the government. When the hall was taken over and turned into a maternity home, it was kept for 10 years. It ran from 1939 to 1949 as a maternity home. And ⁓ what I found very, very sad writing that chapter. was the story of the women who were giving birth to illegitimate children. These were women who had either conceived out of wedlock or having an affair with somebody else who was married and this, baby that was being born, had to be taken away and adopted forcibly. And the women tragically were known as the Brownies and they were set to work in the kitchens at Rocket Hall until they went into second stage labour and they were dressed in brown uniforms so that's why they were called the Brownies. I found that very chilling. It's not something that one hears that often now, but in those days it was such a disgrace to fall pregnant out of wedlock that your baby was adopted. And I found that very sad. I think one of the loveliest juxtapositions was at Aldenham where Monsenia Ronald Knox, who translated both books of the Bible from Vulgate into English, ⁓ He was asked to, he asked to find somewhere quiet to work. And at the same time, ⁓ the house was given over to a school of Catholic girls from Kensington. And Ronald Knox became their preacher, their pastor. And they absolutely adored him. And I spoke to one of them, a woman called Alana Darling. And I said to her, so what was it like having this extraordinary intellect? And she said, ⁓ he was absolutely marvelous. and we loved his sermons. I've never heard a better sermon since, and that's 80 years later. And so that was a lovely sort of juxtaposition that would never have happened. You Ronald Knox would never normally have got himself engaged with nuns and schoolgirls, but they loved him and he adored them. Jonathan Thomas (25:28) You So some of these grand houses were never the same after the war. Can you talk about the lasting impact this requisitioning had on Britain's country house culture and some of most dramatic examples? Julie Summers (25:55) Well, the whole status of the British, sort of the country home, if you like, had been slightly in question since the First World War, because without an army of servants, these houses really don't run themselves well. And historically, in the 19th century, a small house for six or seven people was run by 50, 60, 70 people. I think in the case of Wadsden Manor, the Ross Childs had in excess of 15 gardeners just to look after the gardens and glass houses alone. and many, many staff in the house itself. So after the Second World War, that was no longer viable. It was simply not possible to afford that kind of staffing level, added to which the government introduced very swinging death duties. So people had to pay enormous tax on homes if a member of the family died and passed the home on. So very often there was simply no money to look after these houses. And there was a terrible time in the 50s and 60s when about house about once a week a house was being destroyed and owners had to come up with better solutions as to what to do with them. some of them, for example, Wadsden was handed over to the National Trust with a very large endowment from Dorothy Voss Child and that is a National Trust house now and you can go and visit it and it's wonderful. Other houses that ⁓ weren't quite so well endowed, they had to fight more for getting help from the state. But fundamentally, unless the owners could think how on earth they could monetise their houses, they sadly fell into disrepair and many of into ruin. Jonathan Thomas (27:34) Yeah, that's shame, but we're lucky to have as many as we do now that survived. Because they're my favorite places to visit. Julie Summers (27:39) way. Have you visited Melford Hall in South Suffolk? So that is a house that was used by a series of army groups throughout the war. About every six months it changed and a regiment would go or a smart part of a regiment would go and the men would live in tents in the hall grounds and the officers would live in the hall itself and the family were housed elsewhere in the village and on one occasion Jonathan Thomas (27:46) No. Julie Summers (28:13) in a February, I think it's February 1943, Richard Parry was looking out of his window and he spotted smoke coming out of one of the chimneys and it turned out that the house was on fire. A Melfort Hall was burnt down in a fire. And it was really sad because he then died sort of five years later, but Lady Una, who was Danish and very, very, very sort of tough lady, she rebuilt the hall. She absolutely determinedly rebuilt the hall. and when she offered it to National Trust they didn't take it, so she and Nanny opened the hall to the public several days a week for years and years and eventually the National Trust took it over because it's such a fantastic Tudor building. So that was an example of great determination on the part of an owner. Jonathan Thomas (28:57) I'm going to have to add that one to my list to visit. The most recent one we visited was Basildon Park. ⁓ And that's a great example of one that was rescued by its owners after their election. And I was surprised to learn that the 101st Airborne made famous by Band of Brothers was based there during World War II. And I was like, ⁓ I did not expect to see the Band of Brothers while I was forwarding through this country house. Julie Summers (29:04) yes. Well, there were a huge number of Americans over here in the build up to D-Day. They were all over the southwest of England and many places have fond memories of the Americans. Jonathan Thomas (29:31) Was it a front? So on the topic of World War II, let's talk about Jam Busters and Home Fires. So ⁓ Jam Busters became the inspiration for ITV's hit Home Fires, which aired in the US on PBS Masterpiece Theater, drew over six million viewers an episode. It was a worldwide hit. What was it like seeing your historical research transformed into a drama and how involved were you in the process? Julie Summers (30:00) It was wonderful. It was absolutely wonderful. And the reason I think it was so much easier for me than for a fiction writer is that they had to make a drama out of it. They couldn't take real people and make a drama out of them. That wasn't that wasn't ever going to happen. So Simon Block, who is the writer of the series, he and I worked very closely together with Catherine Oldfield, the executive producer. And we sat down together for four days in this magnificent room at the top of ITV Tower then, it's no longer there. and we just chewed the fat and we talked about each of the characters backstories. He created the characters and then he would talk to me about the storylines. And I was very involved because I was able to give him storylines that he perhaps wouldn't have thought of himself. But one of the WIs remits, his charitable remits was to encourage literacy. And if you remember in the series, Steph the farmer is illiterate and Theresa the school teacher. Sorry, any spoiler, apologies if people haven't viewed it yet. But to reason the school teacher from Liverpool's teaches Steph how to read. And that is absolutely aligned from what would have happened in the Second World War and before with the WI. And another storyline was the fact that in 1939 in September, there was a census basically. And ⁓ many women who had lost brothers and lovers and so forth in the First World War. didn't put their son's names down on the list. And that was an offense. It was treasonable. It was a prisonable offense. But because over 60,000 women didn't do that, the government realized it couldn't put 60,000 women into prison. And so there was this sort of kind of quiet amnesty. But there was an embarrassing moment in January, 1940, when ration books were handed out. And suddenly there were many, many thousands of young men who didn't have a ration book. And of course that was another line for Simon Bloch to use. So we played with those kind of details and I found it really stimulating to take my historical research and allow him to, if you like, cherry pick and use the best bits for his book, his drama. Jonathan Thomas (32:09) So the WI famously made 12 million pounds of jam and preserves during the war. It influenced government policy and even hosted Eleanor Roosevelt. So why do you think their massive contribution has been overlooked in war histories? Julie Summers (32:24) Shall I say what I really think? It's because they're women. think there's a certain amount of... So I think there's several things going on here. One is that people tend to still, much to their detriment, look down on the WI because it's a rural organisation as opposed to a city-led organisation. It was always about rural women. It was born in Canada to help rural women. So I think there's a little bit of snobbism about that. Jonathan Thomas (32:26) I it's I'm to do. Julie Summers (32:53) It's absolutely cross-cultural. So you get a Duchess talking to a cleaning lady in the same institute, and if she's the president, the cleaning lady, the Duchess calls her Madam President. There's a real sense of equality. And that's not terribly sexy. It's much more sexy if things are sort of upstairs, downstairs. So it didn't really appeal. And I just think that the women's voices were drowned out after the Second World War by the incredible stories of heroism of men. And I think it's those three things, And I really wanted my readers and also our viewers to understand that women just contributed so much, sometimes simply by being available to help think soldier on, battle on, make all that jam. They made a third of the quantity of jam that was consumed during the Second World War. And all of that was from fruit that they'd either picked from the hedgerows or produced in their own gardens. It wasn't fruit that they bought. The sugar they bought, the jars they bought. but the fruit itself came from the hedgerows and the gardens and the allotments of members of the WI. Jonathan Thomas (33:59) And I should add, as you were saying before we started recording, you make your own jam in Marmalite. Julie Summers (34:04) I do. I my marmalade. I'm not so good on jam. My mother was brilliant at dams and dams and chutney and strawberry jam. No, I'm a marmalade girl. Definitely. Jonathan Thomas (34:13) So your brother came up with the brilliant title Jam Busters, pun about both gin making and breaking through bureaucratic log jams. Did the research reveal that the WI was more politically influential than people realized? Julie Summers (34:28) Yes, it really was much more politically influential. The Ministry of Information wanted to attract the most senior women in Britain to help them to get their message over to the women because they knew that men relied for their news on newspapers and women relying for their news on magazines and other women. Fair. And so they got hold of the General Secretary of the Women's Institute who was a woman called Frances Farah. Phyllis Deakin, was the Women's Editor of the Times, Audrey Withers, the great Audrey Withers, who was Editor of Vogue, and Stella Reading, was the head of the Women's Voluntary Service, a million women ⁓ volunteered to help with that. And those four women were briefed regularly by the government, by the Ministry of Information on what the government wanted women to think and do. And sometimes they agreed, and sometimes they chose to ignore. But... But in large, when it was a sensible message from the government, those women were prepared to put those messages into practice and to convey that to their membership. Jonathan Thomas (35:32) Then my last question is, ⁓ why was the show so short-lived when there was so much story to tell? They left us on a cliffhanger. Julie Summers (35:44) I cannot tell you how sad I was when that happened. We had been working on series three. We had two new writers. I don't think I'm breaking any confidences here. And one of the new writers asked the exec producer, so how many series are we working towards? And she said, six, maybe nine. And three days later, I got a phone call from her to say, we've been cut. And I let out a by F Bond and she said, a new head of drama has come into ITV, a woman called Polly Hill. She comes from the BBC, she's very well respected, she's very, very senior and she wants to axe and reshape ITV drama and she wanted to axe, I believe, Endeavour, The Dorals and Homefires. You can't say that's Endeavour, it's a national treasure, wasn't happening. The Durrells had already been recommissioned and so we literally fell on the cutting room floor. It was devastating and I was obviously shattered, for some of the actresses who had pretty well got guaranteed work for the next five months, all fell dry. It literally all fell through for them. that was, one doesn't think about the impact on actors and actresses, but some of them who had senior roles in that drama, that was their annual salary and suddenly, gone in a puff of smoke. So it was a very dramatic and very sad moment and ⁓ Catherine Oldfield, who I really adore, she goes all over the world with ⁓ ITV dramas and people still ask her to this day, 10 years later, why did you axe home fires? We loved it. Jonathan Thomas (37:31) Good. Julie Summers (37:32) I mean I'd give anything for them to bring it back, I really would, but I don't think it'll come back now. Jonathan Thomas (37:37) Well, it's been too long now. mean, the actresses would have aged out of the time period. ⁓ But we could have had nine seasons. It could have been the next Downton Abbey. ⁓ Hate it. Hate it. It's so weird how, how this is totally into the weeds, but how, ⁓ you know, there could be a hit TV show that everybody agrees is good and is a hit, but one person comes in and upsets the apple cart and it's gone. You'll never hear it. Julie Summers (38:06) I I mean, the one thing my wonderful son Richard said to me was, well, Mummy, faulty towels only ran for two seasons. Jonathan Thomas (38:13) It did, but at least we got to finish the story. Julie Summers (38:16) Yeah. I know what we're hoping is, know, that Audrey Withers, the dress for war that's been commissioned by GoMondTV to be a drama series. it's at the moment it's in what somebody the other day described as development hell, but it's we've got a script, first script. We're just hoping that we get that one greenlit. And if we do, then that would won't be home fires, but it'll be another good drama series about the Second World War. Jonathan Thomas (38:41) Well, I'm sure PBS Masterpieces is looking forward to that one. So moving on, ⁓ your first book was about your great uncle, Sandy Irvine, who died on Mount Everest with Mallory in 1924. And just recently, his boot was discovered on the mountain. So what was that moment like for you? Has it changed your perspective on the story? Julie Summers (39:07) Yes, yes. So I ⁓ was in London, I took a phone call, I was about to go and see the film Lee, about Lee Miller, and a man from the Derogatory Society who I've known for a very long time said to me, ⁓ hi, Julie, I'd like you to take a call from Kathmandu tomorrow. And I said, I'm sorry, I'm in vogue at the moment. Literally my vogue book had been out for five days, my head was in a different space. And I said, I've stopped, I've given up Everest. It was the 100th anniversary, I've given up Everest. And he said, He said it in a kind of authoritative voice. said, Julie, I really needed to take this call. So said, okay. So the next morning I got on the phone. I got on the ⁓ Zoom call and there was a man called Jimmy Chin wearing a baseball cap. And he said to me, hi, my name's Jimmy Chin. And I said, hello, ⁓ forgetting who he was in my excitement. And he was a filmmaker. He made a very famous Oscar winning film called Free Solo about a guy who climbs El Capitan with no ropes, no nothing. And... He said, yeah, said, me and my team, we were on the north side of Everest last year, last month, and we were trying to ski down the south side. And I went, you're mad? And he went, I know but. Snowed off, couldn't do it. Walking down the central Rhongberk glacier, came across this boot. I said, that's interesting. And he said, yeah. He said it was some adult boot like Mallory's. I said, that's interesting. And then he said, and it had a foot in it in the sock. And the sock had a name tape on it. And the name tape said A.C.Rovan. And I went, my God, you found my great uncle's foot. And I literally had not expected it. And I was totally thrown. I didn't know what to think. Anyway, he was lovely and he sort of let me sort of calm down a bit. And they were very worried because I've said all along, I do not want his body to be found because the scandal over the photographs of Mallory's corpse caused a terrible amount of hurt in the Mallory family and great anxiety in the Irvine family. and I knew my family would not want to see photographs of Sandy's broken corpse or bashed up face. So Jimmy Chin, to his absolute credit, has been so good and there's no photograph of the bone, you only see the photograph of the boot and the sock and the name tape, that's all you will ever see and it's a piece of interesting archaeology. So ⁓ actually I think they handled it really well and what it made me do was to want to go back to the original story because I wrote the book in 1999 when I knew nothing about Everest and of course over 25 years I've learned a lot more. So I've been working with a very very respected Austrian German researcher called Johann Hemmler and we may or may not be writing a book at the moment. it's it's don't know there's another much more interesting book on the go so the Jonathan Thomas (41:57) question already. Julie Summers (42:03) So we are, yes, Jochen and I are producing a book that's coming out in America in the autumn and Britain next summer. But it's not my main book. Jonathan Thomas (42:11) So ⁓ we kind of jumped ahead a little bit earlier when you talked about the bridge on the River Kwai. Your grandfather, ⁓ Philip Tuzzi, was the real colonel who built the bridge on the River Kwai. How does having these extraordinary family connections influence your work as a historian? Is it a blessing, a burden, is it both? mean, wow, what a connection. Julie Summers (42:33) You know, it's so funny because I'm quite often asked this and it's an accident of birth, isn't it? I I didn't know my parents before they obviously before they had me and daddy was related to Uncle Sandy Irvin and my mother was related to Philip Tuzzi, he was a daughter. We always called him Grandpa Bush. And to me, they were just, know, Sandy Irvin was a historical character. My grandfather was a fantastic man. Amazing. He could do the most extraordinary whistles. I loved his whistling. and he was a very, very kind man. And he was the most difficult to write about because I knew him as a very old man. I was 15 when he died. And it's much more difficult to write about somebody you know, ⁓ sort of intimately, than somebody you never met. ⁓ And so in a way, it was more difficult to write about him because I had to take a big step back and look at him from the perspective of a historian rather than from the point of view of a granddaughter. And the granddaughter bit helps when you are talking about family and family relations very carefully. But the historian bit is the most important bit because it's what he did, what he achieved, why he did what he did. And there was a moment, he recorded 30, no 30 tapes. So about 120 hours of recording ⁓ over a period of 18 months with a professor of ⁓ economics from Liverpool University. And he used to... clear his throat before he ⁓ introduced the topic and the tapes were 30 minutes each. And on one occasion he went, Peter, today I'm going to tell you about my experience with women. And I was chopping up carrots for my children for lunch. I was kind of in my late thirties, early forties. And I thought, sugar, I am about to learn about my grandfather's sex life. This is way off topic. I'm way out of my comfort zone. And I thought, well, a granddaughter doesn't want to know that. But historian, of course, professionally has to know what it was like. So he cleared his throat again. said, well, like most Englishmen, I can write the story of my sex life on the back of a postage stamp. And I thought, whew, cut off like that. So that was a fun moment. But I don't regard it as a burden. I regard it as a great honor that he was my grandfather, but he was also a grandfather to 11 other grandchildren. So we share him with pride. Jonathan Thomas (44:40) you So you recently published We Are Legion for the Royal British Legion Centenary and now this comprehensive vote biography. After covering institutions, are you drawn back to individual biographies or is there another unexplored corner of 20th century British history that's calling to you? Julie Summers (45:13) Well, I am very keen to write another biography, but I haven't got somebody in my sights yet. So my next book, which I'm really, really excited about, is called The Women of D-Day. And of course, it embraces American women as well as British women. And it came about because all my books come about kind of by accident, like uninvited guests when I was visiting Harrogate. And I was asked to give a speech, a disruptive introductory speech at a conference for D-Day in 2019, so D-Day 75, so six years ago. And I was very, very interested in trying to be provocative without being in any way rude to the historians who were there. And they were historians from Canada, from the US and from the UK principally, all men. And I stood up in front of them and I said, how many women do you think were directly involved in the planning for D-Day? And there was this sort of slight gasp of silence. And then one man put his hand up and said, 100. And I said, no. And then the woman in the front who I know slightly, she said, 3000. And I said, And they sort of looked at me and I said, 348,000 British women were involved in the planning for D-Day and more than that of American women. And it was logistics. They were amazing and they did extraordinary but vital jobs. Some of which were jobs that men simply couldn't have done. Some of them were jobs that men could have done but were given to women because the men were very much more valuable at going over and being shot. And it was just, it's just been such a revelation. So here's one example. A woman who became the first professor of archeology at Cambridge University. resigned from Cambridge in 1940 and joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, where her archaeological training was used to map the beaches of Normandy, obviously for what tanks and vehicles could land there, what the sands were suitable for, but also so that she could tell the sappers or the engineers where they could drill for water so they could feed the army. because you couldn't take all the French water, you had to be able to feed the army. So just basic logistics like that were done by women. And I just thought, this is a great story. It's amazing. And they were radio operators. were Bletchley Park, of course, secret listeners. And in America, outside Washington, there was a huge facility where there were thousands of women listening to cables, both from the Pacific War, but also from the European War. And just the more you look into it, the more you realize women had. very, very significant influence over how the D-Day preparations came into being and they kept the show on the road. Jonathan Thomas (48:14) Well, you've sold me on the book, so when does it come out? Julie Summers (48:17) my goodness, it's coming out in end of May 2027. So in publishing terms, Jonathan, next week, I've got to finish the first draft by the end of, by this time next year. Indeed, yes. Jonathan Thomas (48:31) ⁓ So for my final question then, ⁓ is there a topic or period that you're just dying to write about that you haven't had a chance to yet or you want to keep all those close to your chest? Julie Summers (48:42) ⁓ I'm very, very interested in speed and locomotion and I would love to write a story of one of the main roads in Britain. It's called the A5 and it runs from London, basically, up to Holyhead and it was the road that was used for the Post. I'd love to write a story of that road and look at it in all its different aspects. So look at the architecture, look at the story of the Post, ⁓ the post wagons that went up there. but also the poetry and it's a bit of an airy-fairy sort of project I'd love to work on as I get closer to retirement. But right now, I'm not retiring anytime soon. Jonathan Thomas (49:22) Well, I'll read that one too. you're basically, I'm basically your number one audience for these things. So I'm happy to say I will read that one too. So. Julie Summers (49:31) Jonathan, I'm going to be kept busy, so thank you so much. That's a lovely, lovely thing to end on. Jonathan Thomas (49:36) So ⁓ thank you so much for appearing on the Anglotopia podcast. This has been a fascinating discussion about various publishing projects. And if you enjoyed the Anglotopia podcast, please like, subscribe, or leave a comment. Or please consider joining the Friends of Anglotopia Club for early access to new episodes and help support independent long form writing about British culture, history, and travel. Thank you again, Julie. Julie Summers (50:03) Thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure, Jonathan. I really enjoyed the conversation.