Tales of women soldiers feature in the new book ‘Cross-dressed to Kill’ from Bosham’s Vivien Morgan.
Published on: 12/31/20 2:42 PM
‘Cross-Dressed To Kill – Women Who Went To War Disguised As Men’ has been self-published on Amazon at £9.35 Kindle, £13.34 paperback, available from Amazon.
Vivien explains: “I found a Victorian book years ago in a Worcestershire bookshop that featured five women soldiers and was fascinated.
“I was encouraged by friends including the writer Jilly Cooper to do a book as no one had heard about women who masqueraded as men. So I did more research and found out that there were hundreds of known women globally who did this.
“Why and how is what I wanted to know. Were they gay, tomboys, patriots or just like Louisa May Alcott desperate to ‘do something’ as they lived through decades of war?
“I did my research before the internet existed in the British Library and the London Library and in Washington at the national libraries too, finding original stories the women told to publishers and printers as well as details in the army archives and the newspapers of the time.
“I bought as many books on the subject as I could find like American women’s diaries about the Civil War or memoirs by various generals and senior army officers who mentioned finding women in their ranks.
“For the French women, of whom there were so many from the French Revolution onwards, I translated the stories myself and those of the Prussian women, written in extremely difficult Gothic German script, I found a translator. Then the book lay discarded for many years as I pursued a busy career in BBC TV news, travelling a lot and also being a divorced mum to my son. Ironically, lockdown created the time and space for me to pick up the book again and finish it. I’ve always enjoyed writing and have throughout my TV career also published pieces in the national newspapers about my news reports usually on human rights: on forced sterilisation of women in Tibet, orphanages and babies scandal in Romania; the use of ‘slave’ labour in Myanmar etc.
“I’ve worked for The Sunday Times magazine and The Telegraph magazine and edited a schools magazine too. I’m hoping that this book will be of interest not only to women but to anyone curious about hidden faces in history. I’m definitely in favour of the call to re-write what’s been called the ‘stale, white male versions of history’ that is taught in our schools and universities. So I see this book as a way of getting the names and stories of these amazing and iconic women into the history books and educational curricula. They are inspiring to all of us, as early feminists. They did not accept their sex was a barrier to them fighting for their country, having adventures and escaping from domesticity. But in order to do that they had to dress and act as men in a men’s world.
“This book, Cross-dressed to Kill’ is a one-off and I believe a unique illustrated history book with the poems and songs written about the women when they became famous.”
Vivien has also written two textbooks about videojournalism: “I was one of the pioneers in the field of TV news reporting, using a small camera to go under-cover, when the Berlin Wall fell, into closed Communist countries, bringing back videos of places no one had seen before because the small Hi-8 cameras were easy to hide and I could pose as a tourist.”
So pleased that my Sussex newspaper did a review of my book ‘Cross-dressed to Kill’. Nice New Year’s Eve surprise. Thanks