WEBVTT - Conversations with Cornesy - Natasha Lester 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:04.520 Good everyone, Welcome to conversations. My guest today is Natasha Lester, 0:00:04.680 --> 0:00:08.159 now one of our best selling authors. We say that 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:10.280 because she's made it big in America. She's a New 0:00:10.360 --> 0:00:14.000 York Times best selling author and she's prolific. She writes 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:17.680 nearly a book a year, and the beautifully presented books 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:23.040 romantic as well. Her latest book is a bit more 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:26.439 than a romance. It's a story of a French heroine 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:30.479 and the book is called The Mademoiselle Alliance. Natasha Lester 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:33.839 joins us from Perth. Natasha, welcome to the program. How 0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:34.159 are you. 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:36.879 I'm very well. Thank you so much for having me. 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:41.520 I want to say the Mademoiselle Alliance. 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:46.040 French accents working this morning, won't wait. 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:52.120 Tell us about the Mademoiselle Alliance. The hero, the heroine 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:52.919 of this story. 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:56.640 So she was the only female leader of a French 0:00:56.720 --> 0:00:59.800 resistant network during the Second World War, which you would 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:03.520 think would be a pretty remarkable achievement, and that would 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:06.080 mean that she would become someone whose name would be 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:09.600 quite well known after the war. But it hasn't turned 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:12.120 out to be that way. I mean, as often happens 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:14.680 with women in history, they can get a little bit 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:20.040 lost in the subsequent years, but possibly also because after 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:24.720 the war, Chale de Gaulle created this Companion de la 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:28.600 Libera film, which was an award for the people he 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:33.000 considered to be the most instrumental in helping to bite 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:36.240 for France's freedom throughout the war years. And there are 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:40.000 one thousand and thirty eight people he put onto that list. 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:43.760 Two and thirty two of them were men. Unsurprisingly, so 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:47.160 only six were women. Marie Madeline for Card, despite the 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:50.720 fact that she led the largest resistance network in France 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:53.280 throughout the war, was not on that list, but two 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:57.560 of her subordinates were, so that's possibly why she was 0:01:57.600 --> 0:01:59.600 a little forgotten for quite a while. But I'm hoping 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:00.960 to change that with this book. 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:07.160 Now you write fictional history, I think that's the term, 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:09.400 and I mean I love it. Frederic Forsyth is one 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:13.360 of my favorite author, and he wrote fictional history basically. 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:17.799 So tell us about Marie Madline for carm and how 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:20.560 did you come across her and what inspired you to 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:21.360 write about her. 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:25.520 I mean, I read a lot about the war because 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:28.800 my books often tend to be set around that time period. 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:33.000 So I considered myself to be reasonably cognizant of the 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:36.760 people and events that had happened during that time, and 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:41.079 I'd come across her name only once in that whole time. 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:43.880 I'd been kind of reading about the Second World War, 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:47.519 and that, I guess was what drew me to look 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:50.119 into her history a bit more, because I thought, well, 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:52.600 maybe she's one of these women that I like to 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:56.040 write about who have been forgotten by history, and maybe 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:58.240 there's a bit more to her story than there's one mention. 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:00.960 I mean, when you're and you're kind of reading about 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:04.320 resistance heroes, you know, Jean Mullin obviously is the name 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:07.240 you come across time and time again. But no, Madeline 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:09.520 for Card was one I'd only come across this one time. 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:12.680 So I went and scoured the internet to buy a 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:15.119 copy of her memoir, which is out of print now. 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:18.320 It was published decades ago. Got my hands on a 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:22.040 copy of that, started to read, and I wouldn't believe 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:25.960 the things that she had done during the war, when 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:28.560 you know, she was just an ordinary woman. She wasn't 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:32.560 a military person. She had no training an espionage or 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:35.160 anything that she did, but she just took it on 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:37.920 because she had to. I thought, Okay, there's so much here. 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:40.840 I want to try my hardest to bring this together 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:43.880 into a story that will be a novel but draws 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:46.320 as much as possible on the true events that happened 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:46.600 to her. 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:52.680 So her biography was written in French. Lash to denoy. 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:56.839 Sorry. As soon as one start talking French, I dub 0:03:56.880 --> 0:03:57.440 it to French. 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:01.000 Translation. Is is that right? 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:02.320 Correct? That's right? Yes? 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:07.120 You You obviously speak fluent French, almost not quite. 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:09.880 I wouldn't ever say I spoke fluent French. No, A 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:12.520 French person wouldn't say I spoke fluent French. But I 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:15.440 speak good enough French, yes, to be able to read 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:16.520 her memory in French. 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:19.200 Well, look, we'll come to you in time. Okay. Well 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:22.440 let's talk about Marie Madeline for cards. So her life 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:25.760 was extremely interesting. I mean she seemed to she seemed 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:30.960 to be an adventurous when yes, didn't when women would adventurous. 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:34.880 Yeah, And I think that's because of her childhood and 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:38.520 her parents. Largely. Her father worked for the for the 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:42.960 A Marie a Merchant Marine Service and he was posted 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:46.920 to Shanghai, so they lived in the French concession of Shanghai. 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:49.520 That's where Marie Madeleine grew up, so you can imagine 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:52.880 what kind of childhood you might have in such an 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:57.080 at that time, you know, exotic kind of place. She 0:04:57.560 --> 0:04:59.640 was kind of left to roam the streets for Shanghai 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:02.880 with her nanny and her brother and her sister. They 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:06.880 had quite an unfettered childhood. Her parents were quite liberal 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:09.560 in their outlook in terms of who their children mixed 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:12.320 with and the kinds of adventures their children were able 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.320 to have. And then he went back to Paris because 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:19.600 their father sadly died. And while she was in Paris, 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:22.280 she fell in love. At age seven, she was going 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:24.159 to be a concert pianist of all things, and she 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:27.400 ends up being a spy. But so she practiced the 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:30.479 piano for eight hours every day, was on track to 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:32.840 become a concert pianist, and fell in love at age 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:37.400 seventeen with a military man who was about ten years 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:40.600 older than her, and she, I mean, she loved him, 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:42.599 but she was also quite attracted by the fact that 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:46.279 his next posting was to Morocco, and because she'd always 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:49.760 lived in exotic places, Morocco seemed like a fabulous place 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:51.880 to go and live as well. So then she went 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:55.400 and lived in Morocco for a few years with her husband, 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:59.680 had two children, learnt the Arabic language. She was a 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:02.760 bit of a polyglot. She could speak numerous languages. She 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:05.840 helped her husband with a little bit of espionage work 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:08.800 in Morocco. In fact, he worked with the French intelligence 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:12.400 service there, and she also helped out at a clinic, 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:15.719 women's clinic, and she ended up delivering babies and things 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:18.920 like that in Morocco in the late nineteen twenties, early 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:23.000 nineteen thirties. So this is Marie Madeleine in her sort 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:28.159 of early twenties, and I think those experiences formed the 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:31.279 woman she became later on. When she returned to Paris 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:33.280 in the nineteen thirties, did. 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:35.160 She have much to do with it because there was 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:39.240 the old Jeering uprise, was the French had trouble with 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:43.560 civil wars And was her husband involved in any event. 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:47.560 Yes, so he was part of the intelligence service sent 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:52.520 to Morocco to really report on what the tribes as 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:54.600 they were called at the time, were doing and whether 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:57.200 there was going to be any more uprising or any 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:00.240 more unrest after the Riff War, which had obviously being 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:05.279 problematic for France. So that's where she became useful to 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:08.560 him because she could speak Arabic. She was this beautiful 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:13.480 woman who people liked to converse with, so she was 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:17.640 able to gather information for her husband in his role. 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:21.360 You really like this lady, don't you read? I read 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:23.640 in the author's notes that you had to overcome your 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:25.720 hero worship before you can write the book. 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:28.640 Yeah, I did. I mean, can you imagine she was 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:32.520 for her time? Was she loved car rallying? She was 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:37.240 a pilot, which women just weren't pilots in the nineteen twenties, 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:39.840 nineteen thirties, it was unheard of. She's lived in all 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:44.480 these amazing places, She's learned the language, absorbed herself into 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:49.200 the culture, and then she suddenly answers her country's call 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:52.600 when she needs to. So yeah, I'm pretty much in 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:53.160 awe of her. 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:55.720 What was she doing when war breakout? And when I 0:07:55.720 --> 0:08:00.400 say war breakout, when the Germans occupied Paris, I suppose 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:03.200 that's when it really hit home. Were you able to 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:06.240 get a picture of what her life was like then? 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:09.720 Yes? So when she returned to Paris, she separated from 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:13.360 her husband, took her two children back to Paris in 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:17.000 the sort of mid nineteen thirties, and became a journalist 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:21.320 for Radio sid Day. A job there was to interview 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:26.320 women who were doing remarkable things in the art in 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:29.400 all the different fields, you know, women like her, basically 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:32.559 women who were ignored by the other more traditional conservative 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:37.199 French newspapers. And at a party in nineteen thirty six, 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:42.400 she met a man called Jeorge Lustano Lacal and he 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:44.839 went by the codename Navar, so we'll use that because 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:50.440 that's much easier to say. And he was really he 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:55.199 admired her intellect and her journalistic skills, and he knew 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:58.080 something of the fact that she had learned a little 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:01.160 bit of intelligence work when she was living in Morocco, 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.880 and so he invited her to join him in setting 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:07.840 up his newspaper. And his intention with that newspaper was 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:12.160 to bring to life, bring to the eyes and ears 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:15.280 of the French government and the French people that Hitler 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:17.880 was preparing for war, because at this time in nineteen 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:20.560 thirty six, nobody believed that he was doing that. So 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:23.920 her first job that he gave her was to drive 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:27.520 to Belgium to collect some secret dossias that had been 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:31.440 smuggled out of Germany by a friend that exposed the 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:34.160 true intentions of the German high command. So she drove 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:39.319 up to Belgium, collected those documents, came back to Paris, 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:44.360 thaw them published in the newspaper, and realized that that 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:46.679 was what she wanted to do. She wanted to be 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.480 a part of trying as much as possible to help 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:52.400 her country to avoid this looming threat of Hitler. 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:56.800 As you just saying, it's it's hard to imagine that 0:09:56.880 --> 0:09:59.920 there's elements of fiction in them, because, as you say, 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:04.679 you're telling me what she did. So how much of 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:08.600 the book is fictional and does it lose any of 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:12.320 the reality of what actually happened. 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:16.280 So the main things that you have to do when 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:19.560 you're an author dealing with and a resistance network that 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:23.439 number three thousand people and pretty much every second person's 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:27.320 name was Onrea or Jan and they also had real 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:29.720 names and code names, is you've got to reduce the 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:32.640 cart of characters. So that's the main part where things 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:35.360 get a bit fictional, where you start to combine people. 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:39.360 You might take the things that two or three people 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:41.200 did and give them just to one person, just to 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:43.800 simplify things, because three thousand people is a lot for 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:47.240 anyone to keep their mind around when you're reading a novel. 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:53.200 But everything that Murray Madeline did is basically in the novel. Obviously, 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:55.079 I've had to take out a few of the different 0:10:55.840 --> 0:10:58.600 intelligence projects that she worked on because there was simply 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:01.640 too many her What she did was so vast it's 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:05.160 impossible to encompass in a book. And the thing that 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:09.320 I probably have fictionalized the most is to really drill 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:12.760 down into what her motivations were for doing what she did. 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:15.480 I can only guess that that really she doesn't. Her 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:20.320 memoir is very detailed, but she doesn't like to get 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:24.040 very personal in her memoir, and when she was interviewed 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:26.920 while she was alive, once again, she didn't like to 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:30.240 get very personal and talk about her children and her 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:32.520 loves and that kind of thing. So you've got to 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:36.320 imagine your way into those aspects of her life. That 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:39.520 that's the part that I would say, is I hope 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:43.360 trueish to the person she was based on everything that 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:45.760 I've read, But nobody can ever know really what was 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:46.800 going on in her mind. 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:49.720 We need to take a break. I want to find 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:54.920 out more about Marie Madline Fucard. We speaking to Natasha Lesta, 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:59.720 who's our New York Times bestselling author, very prolific, so 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:02.120 much want to talk about back shortly. My guest on 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:06.679 Conversations today is Natasha Lesta. Natasha's become one of our 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:10.560 best selling authors, recognized in America by New York Times 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:14.120 even has her books have separate covers when they go 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:16.800 to they're published in America. I don't know why, but 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:21.440 her latest book is called The Mademoiselle Alliance, about a 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:24.280 lady who worked with the French resistance called Marie Madeline 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:28.000 for Card. Now, Natasha, there must be something about in 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:31.600 the way my mind thinks, but this is a lady 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:36.360 who was French, and she had lovers and five different children. 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:40.800 In the end, my mind is saying that she was promiscuous. 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:44.400 Am I am I way of being there or just 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:46.000 thinking like a true male? 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:52.840 Yeah, it's interesting. I actually read an article that talked 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:57.040 about this, that was written in contemporary times about why 0:12:57.200 --> 0:12:59.840 is it that you Marie Madeline for Card might be 0:12:59.880 --> 0:13:03.080 so to be like that simply because she was a woman. 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:07.080 And look, I don't all the research that I've done, 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:08.720 I don't think she was at all. I think she 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:12.240 was absolutely faithful to her first husband and he was 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:16.200 just a different kind of person to her. He was 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:21.320 much more formal, much stricter. She was an adventurous woman 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:24.440 who loved to talk to people. She was very social, 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:28.319 and she had this charithma that I think you could 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:31.719 probably mistake for something other than what it was. I 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:33.320 think it was just, you know, some people walk in 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:36.120 to room and they command the room, and some people 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:39.160 find that compelling, and other people are jealous of that, 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:41.760 and so a lot of the different accounts come from 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:45.440 whether you were drawn to that or you wanted to 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:49.040 have that yourself, I think. And so she certainly fell 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:51.200 in love during the war with her second in command, 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:55.840 and they were deeply, deeply in love. That's the one 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:59.679 thing you can glean from her memoir. She doesn't mention 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:04.480 him tenderly often, but when she does, the adjectives she 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:09.640 uses to describe him, you know, he's magnificent and he's hers, 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:12.520 and you just know you can feel that yefuent feeling. 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:16.840 And he obviously, tragically did not survive the war. So 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:20.520 after the war, she then married again, and she stayed 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:23.360 with her second husband for the rest of her life. 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:25.720 So I don't think you could call her promiscuous at all. 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:28.240 I think you could just say that she lived a 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:29.120 normal life. 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:31.600 Well, she died in nine, in eighty nine. Were you 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:34.080 able to I mean a children would have survived her, 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:36.200 I'm sure did. Are we able to interview any of 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:37.320 the children? 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:40.400 No, I haven't interviewed any of her children, although I 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:45.520 have recently heard from her god son, which is very interesting. 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:49.040 So there was a man called Kenneth Crane who was 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:54.520 her sixter liaison during the war. And this gentleman that 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:58.760 I've heard from is Kenneth Crane's son. And so Marry 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:01.760 Madeleine and Kenneth Crane became very close during the war, 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:04.560 as you would because he was the one who was 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:07.600 fighting for her with the British and fighting for alliance 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:11.440 with the British. She met him when she went to London. 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:14.000 She stayed in London for several months during the war. 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:17.640 So it's interesting to be able to talk to people 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:21.320 who've actually spoken to Marie Madeline when she was alive 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:24.800 and who knew her. Yeah, and I had done that 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:28.640 before with previous books, and it's really quite a lovely 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:30.040 experience actually. 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:34.239 So he remembered it obviously, because he's oh, yes, absolutely 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:39.560 with me. Yeah, he was her godson? Correct, that's right, Yes, 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:41.040 and he contacted you. 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:42.440 Yes, that's right. 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:43.920 What sort of a thrill was that? 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:46.520 Oh, it's fabulous. I love it when people do that. 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:51.520 So yeah, just like I say, just to be in 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:54.600 contact with someone who knew her when she was alive 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:55.760 is remarkable. 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:58.200 Do we have to read the book to find out 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:00.440 what she did later in life when the war rendered? 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:03.880 So I don't cover that part of her life because 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:08.040 it was already quite a long book and I wanted 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:10.040 to just take that one part of her life and 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:13.760 focus on that. So I think that there's very little 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:16.680 about her on the internet. Really. Lynn Olsen wrote a 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:19.880 fantastic biography about her, which is probably the most accessible 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:23.520 source for most people. That's called Madame Foucard's Secret War. 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:27.920 But once again she summarizes Marie Madeline's life after the war, 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:31.720 but there's not that much about it. She does talk 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:35.880 about a reunion ceremony that Marie Malon organized with the 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:40.080 families her remaining agents that had an aeroplane fly in 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:43.240 just like it would have during the war when they 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:47.680 were landing planes by moonlight to bring them supplies and 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:51.720 agents from London, etc. And that's quite a lovely and 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:55.560 moving anecdote to read about in Lynn Olson's biography. 0:16:56.720 --> 0:16:59.440 Well, we have to buy the book The Mademoiselle Alliance. 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:01.200 I don't know why I want to say all. 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:05.720 In French, it would be that's correct. 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:10.199 So let's talk about you. Why are so many of 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:12.040 your books based in France? 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:16.160 So I learned the language in high school just because 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:19.240 I enjoyed it and I was resonably good at it, 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:23.439 and I continued my French language studies after high school 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:26.840 and I ended up working for Laurel Paris, which is 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:30.600 a French company. Obviously, so I had French lescense there, 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:33.240 met a lot of French people, learned a lot about 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:37.119 the French culture, and I think that that's part of 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:40.880 why I've become very interested in French history. It's come 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:43.480 through a love of the language. And obviously that does 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:45.720 make it easier when you are researching French history to 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:48.960 be able to read documents in French, because everything you 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:51.560 look at in the archives in France is in French. 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:56.200 And I just I love the culture, I love the history, 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:58.879 I love the country. I've traveled there a lot. My 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:02.520 family loved country. To my fourteen year old son has 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:06.200 just spent eight weeks there on a student exchange program 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:08.560 and we're having a French student come and stay with 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:11.959 us in May. So we just we just all love it. 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:14.359 Your sons speak French? Did he speak that? Did he 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:15.240 pick the language up? 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:17.520 Yeah, so he was studying it before he went, but 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:20.800 he's become much better since he returned. We now have 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:25.200 a weekly dinner conversation in French. Everyone has to speak French. 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:27.920 My husband speaks no French, so he doesn't participate much 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:30.800 in that. My daughter's learning and my son is now 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:34.960 really good. So it's quite fun exciting. 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:36.720 That you didn't set out to be a writer, and 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:39.159 maybe that's what you thought you could become, but when 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:41.919 you left school there there was no passway for you. 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:45.040 So explain a bit more about you, your career pathway. 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:47.600 You speak that you talked about working for Laurel. 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:50.960 And yeah, so I always wanted to be a writer. 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:54.080 My mum has kept all these books and poems and 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:56.520 stories that I wrote when I was a kid. But 0:18:57.560 --> 0:18:59.760 here in Perth, when I left high school there were 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:03.239 no brand writing degrees at university. So you know, if 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:04.960 you wanted to be a doctor, you went and did 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:07.159 a medical degree and then you became a doctor, or 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:08.399 if you wanted to be a teacher, you did the 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:11.679 education degree and you became a teacher. But it was like, well, 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:14.119 how do I become a writer? I had no idea. 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:17.879 So my dad, who's an accountant, I went to him 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:20.119 for career advice, which I don't know why I did that, 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:22.680 but so he suggested I do a bat for a 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:25.840 commerce I think he was secretly hoping I'd become an 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:29.000 accountant and take over his accounting practice. So sorry, dad, 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:33.280 that didn't quite work out. But in commerce, I noticed 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:35.840 there was a stream for marketing and public relations and 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:39.560 that involved writing to some extent. So I thought, okay, 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:41.000 well I'll give that a try because I don't know 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:43.600 what else to do. So I studied that. Then I 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:46.639 did work in marketing for about ten or twelve years 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:52.280 for companies like Laurel. I worked for Big M flavored 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:54.760 Milk in their marketing department for a number of years. 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:58.640 I don't know whether you have that in South Australia. Yeah, 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:02.720 So all kinds of random, fast moving consumer goods kind 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:08.080 of marketing role. And then I decided to finally do 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:11.840 something about the writing dream. Once we've gone to Melbourne 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:13.439 for my work. We came back to Perth with my 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:16.880 husband's work. I went back to university then and studied 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:20.320 creative writing because now there was a creative writing degree, 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:23.240 and was lucky enough to get my first book that 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:26.280 I wrote as my master's thesis, that one that Take 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:29.639 Hunger for Award and was published by Fremantle Press, who 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:32.520 are a wonderful local West Australian publisher. 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:36.120 We'll come to that. You mentioned you write poetry. There's 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:38.800 a little story about you. One of your poems was 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:42.119 published and you've got one hundred dollars for it. I 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:44.600 wonder whether you can recite that poem for us as 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:45.679 we go to the break. 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:48.720 But I really don't think I could. I know it 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:51.280 was called from this Day Forward. That's about the only 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:54.200 thing I remember about, and it was it was free verse, 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:55.160 so I didn't even rhyme. 0:20:57.160 --> 0:20:59.720 Well, set you on the path, there's no doubt about that. 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:03.840 Natasha Lester is my guest, folks. The book is called 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:10.159 The Mademoiselle Alliance about an heroic French resistance fighter you 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:14.520 would call it or agent back shortly, Welcome back to conversations, everybody. 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:17.400 If you just turned in we're speaking to Natasha Lester. 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:21.159 And Natasha is a Western Australian lady who's made it 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:26.200 big in the international world of writing and her books 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:29.280 have been published in America. Her latest one is called 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:32.680 The Mademoiselle Alliance and about this heroic French lady called 0:21:32.760 --> 0:21:36.679 Marie Madeline Foucart. We spoke about that. We're talking a 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:38.679 bit more about you, Natasha, and some of the other 0:21:38.720 --> 0:21:42.240 books that you've written. So you always dreamed of being 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:45.040 a writer when you left school, there was no pathway 0:21:45.240 --> 0:21:47.840 for it, so you go I was intrigued for working 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:50.800 for Laurel, a French company. When you sort of skipped 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:53.720 over that part, how glamorous was it? 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:57.560 Like everything, it sounds much more glamorous than it really was, 0:21:57.600 --> 0:22:00.960 although there were definite moments of glamours. So one of 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:04.280 our py jobs was every time we had a new 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:06.680 product to come out, a new lipstick or a new muscara, 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:09.400