Hello and welcome to The Spectator's Book Club podcast. I'm Sam Leith, the literary editor for The Spectator,

and my guest this week is the writer Anne Weber, whose new book is Epic Annette, a heroine's tale.

And it tells the story of one of the sort of unsung heroines of the

Second World War and after, Annette Beaumanoir. Now, Anne, can you start by telling me how you came

across Annette Beaumontois? Well, actually, by chance, I was invited to a small, a few years ago, I was invited to

a small documentary film festival in the south of France as a writer to participate in

a, after the screening in a round table, and that's what I did, and then afterwards, the

audience could commend, And there was this

very old, frail, small woman standing up. And she said, I remember she told that she was

herself in the resistance when she was a very young woman. And I was absolutely fascinated by what she already said about herself, but also I was so

attracted to her as a person because she also was a very beautiful old woman.

She had this very white hair and these luminous blue eyes and her way of speaking was so

lively, so vivid. And I absolutely wanted to know her better and then she stayed for dinner afterwards.

She even took me with her own car.

She was 94 at that time to the restaurant.

And then we sat close to each other and she started telling me a little bit more of her story.

And then when I went back after this evening, when I went home to Paris, I absolutely knew that I would like to see her again and to know more about her story.

Did she want to tell her story, I mean, did you sense that she was someone who sort of thought this is a writer, she's going to write about me.

I mean, did the idea that you'd write a book about her come up early?

No, not at all. I think. She knew I was a writer, but I'm sure she never thought, and I didn't

think either at that time that I would write a book about her story. For me, it was just

the interest and also my fascination for her as a person and maybe also because I'm German

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