Thread by @ajcdeane

This is the 16th instalment of #deanehistory.

Diana Rowden served in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, & then Special Operations Executive.

She died in a concentration camp when she was 29 years old, when the Nazis executed her.

I championed Rowden’s cause in a recent Balloon Debate with @CWOWomen. I lost to @Edwina_Currie who had chosen Margaret Thatcher. That outcome may very well seem to you to be predictable. But let me tell you about my candidate & why I chose her.

Educated in part in Surrey, in part in Italy and in part on the French Riviera, she was a young British patriot who knew a part of occupied Europe well & her French was excellent- making her a tremendous asset in the making.

But the state didn’t come to her. She volunteered. First, she volunteered for the Red Cross & was serving with them on the continent when France fell to the Third Reich. Cut off by the Allied collapse in 1940, it took much of 1941 for her to escape back to Britain via Iberia.

Secondly, thereafter, she undertook intelligence work with the WAAF, securing rapid promotion.

Thirdly & finally, in 1943, she signed up with SOE: Rowden was a British spy, working for our intelligence service & for the resistance in occupied France.

Her instructors’ reports tell us that she was a good shot and an excellent grenade thrower.

It seems to me that we need a few more good grenade throwers in life right now.

She worked as a courier, conveying secret messages between us & the network of resistance fighters. But, after a short & event-and-explosives-filled period behind enemy lines, she & many colleagues were betrayed by a double agent. Thereafter she was on the run.

After her cover was blown, & she was “in hiding” with a French family, she would take the children of the family tobogganing every morning.

Imprisoned with other brave women like her, those who survived say she buoyed up those with her with cheerful spirits until her last day.

So I think that she is a great champion for women doing their bit as equals to men, and being heroines.

But when I began my research into who I should champion for that debate, I didn’t know who Diana Rowden was.

When you read her name here, chances are you didn’t either.

There is a campaign run by my friend @Zehra_Zaidi for greater recognition of our brave SOE women & I proudly endorse it.

She was brave and & patriotic. It seems to me that we could do with bravery & a bit of patriotism right now.

In a time when we reward blandness & reward those who go through life without ever offending anyone or saying anything that might be alleged to be off-key, shouldn’t we celebrate someone who chose accommodation based on whether she could leg it from the roof without being seen?

Indeed, who better to champion than someone best known for blowing up a Peugeot factory? We as a country love joking about the French. For my part, I have only ever drunk Evian mineral water, because if there’s ever a drought in France I want to feel like I played my part.

Lest you think this gauche of me, I point to the example of my betters that we used to be able to make light of the darkest things. In the depths of our country’s greatest challenge, Churchill said caviar is so good it’s worth fighting on the same side as the Russians to get it.

The others whose stories I’ve told on #deanehistories so far have the fame they’ve earned. Diana Rowden still to this day does not.