The female spy mistress who never gave up on her agents

Dame Vera Atkins never got over the guilt of losing many of her women spies, dropped into France during the Second World War before being betrayed, captured and tortured. A new drama-documentary tells of their courage... and hers

- Karen Rockett

A QUARTER of a century ago, boxes containing top-secret files that were supposed to have been destroyed at the end of the Second World War were found in a Cornish garden shed. Neatly indexed and sealed, they detailed the hidden lives and code names of our first female agents who were sent illegally to the front line. Spy mistress Vera Atkins had technically committed treason by keeping the papers, breaking the Official Secrets Act, but the for- mer intelligence officer had an important reason for doing so.

She was determined these brave heroines and their sacrifices would not be forgotten after dozens of them failed to return home after the war. So, in defiance of the authori- ties and the law, Vera kept the documents safe and hidden.

The agents' full story and that of the lady who led them will begin tonight in the TV docu-drama series The Lost Women Spies, starring Kat Kumar as agent Noor Inayat Khan and Sian Altman as Vera. It is thought to be the first time television has focused on the women of the Secret Operations Executive, nicknamed Churchill's Secret Army, after production firm World Media Rights gained access to Vera's files.

Alan Griffiths, the TV company's boss, says: "There are very few series about what happened after the war ended and, in many ways, the aftermath was as horrifying as the war itself - particularly for Vera Atkins."

By 1942, Winston Churchill desperately needed foreign agents in occupied France and although women were not allowed to fight on the front line and had no protection under international law, the then Prime Minister ignored the red tape and nodded through an illegal plan to send women spies behind enemy lines.