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Christine Granville: Britain’s first female spy

16 Jan 2025 1-2pm

National Portrait Gallery
London WC2H 0HE

Overview

Join biographer Clare Mulley to discover the fascinating life, work and legacy of Winston Churchill’s favourite spy, Christine Granville, whose portrait is currently on display in the Gallery.

Polish-born Countess Krystyna Skarbek aka Christine Granville, was Britain’s first – and longest-serving – female special agent of the Second World War. Krystyna served in three theatres of the war, smuggling intelligence across borders and saving the lives of several of her male colleagues in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe and then Egypt and the Middle East. But it was her service behind enemy lines in France in 1944 that made her legendary among the special forces.

Awarded the OBE, George Medal, and French Croix de Guerre, her tragic early death made headlines around the world, yet her true story was kept hidden.

Clare Mulley is an award-winning author focused on female experience during the Second World War. Her books include Agent Zo about the only woman to parachute from Britain to occupied-Poland during the Second World War, to play a key role in the largest organised act of defiance against Nazi Germany, as well as The Women Who Flew For Hitler, The Spy Who Loved and The Woman Who Saved the Children. Popular on TV, radio and pods, Clare reviews widely, and has judged several book prizes. She is a recipient of the Polish honour, the Bene Merito, and the Daily Mail Biographers Club Prize. She lives in Essex with the sculptor Ian Wolter, too many books, and a dog who needs more baths.
 
 

£10 (£8 Members / concessions)

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