Before the war Moyra Smiley worked aged fifteen as an au pair in France, Italy and Germany to learn the languages. From 1936 aged seventeen she went to a FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) camp once a year in Kenya where she grew up and learnt to drive, mend cars and shoot rifles. When the war began, she was stationed as a FANY in Kent and Dover driving ambulances with wounded soldiers who had been brought over by ship. In Spring 1940 Moyra journeyed from Marseille via the Suez Canal to the East Africa FANYs and became a Lance Corporal. She recalls being appointed as the first NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer) woman cypher worker and after two years being a Sergeant FANY in charge of a well-established signals and cypher department in East Africa, receiving and relaying messages to local and British intelligence. Moyra looks back fondly at the camaraderie between the FANYs in Kenya, when she lived in a convent outside Nairobi and how everyone pulled together. Moyra continued to use her cypher knowledge to work for M16 long after the war had ended.

Elizabeth’s first job was at British Airways in Bristol. One of her main responsibilities there involved fire watching, where she had to deal with small fires. After a while, Elizabeth decided to leave her role at British Airways, but as it was a reserved role during the war, it took over a year for her to leave. Following this, Elizabeth moved to London hoping to join the WRNS (Women's Royal Naval Service), but due to there being no vacancies, she ended up joining the FANYs (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry), January 1944. She went on to work in the SOE (Special Operations Executive) organisation in Baker street. Part of her training took her to Cranwell, where she was trained to use teleprinting machines. She remembers going on a trip to Italy with a senior FANY member. The trip there took longer than usual, due to the convoy taking a longer route in order to avoid submarines. Her role in Italy was as a typist, she remembers typing up information for supply drops scheduled to be sent to Yugoslavia and Poland. Elizabeth’s time there came to an end when she injured her back. The journey home was on a hospital ship, a Flying Fortress. The pilot called her to the cockpit, and once in the air, she was tasked with flying the aircraft, whilst the pilot went off to play poker. At some point during the flight, the pilot came back and showed Elizabeth Monte Cassino. She was shocked at the state of the place, it’s something she’ll never forget. After this, she spent some time at the FANY headquarters. Whilst there, Elizabeth learnt of a job opening as a personal assistant for the Australian Military Mission in Berlin. She got the job and went to Berlin, she was shocked at the state of the city. She worked out of a place in Charlottenburg, right next door to a house that was used by the Gestapo. Elizabeth remembers how starved the German civilians were at the time and how upsetting it was.

Margaret Jackson had an international outlook on life, having been brought up in Argentina and completed a modern languages degree. She initially worked for Chatham House then joined the War Office in MI(R) in Paris under Colonel Gubbins, liaising with the Czechs and Poles. After evacuation from St Malo, she moved briefly to Coleshilll House where Colonel Gubbins was raising secret companies to form a resistance in case of invasion, and in December 1940 to Baker Street when Gubbins became head of SOE. As someone who was involved with SOE for virtually its whole existence, Margaret Jackson offers a fascinating insight into the unseen world of secretarial support which enabled SOE, and other organisations, to function. She talks extensively about the key officers involved, the culture of secrecy that was taken for granted, the inter-service politics of setting up SOE, relations with de Gaulle and the highest levels of access to information that secretaries enjoyed.