Intro: Intro music.
Welcome to Talking History with
British Online Archives, the
podcast in which we explore the
past from a variety of angles
and perspectives. British Online
Archives is an academic
publisher and digital repository
of historical source material
based in the UK, and we work
closely with academics, museum
professionals, and heritage
organisations to curate primary
source collections for students
and researchers alike.
Throughout this podcast series,
we will talk to historians and
specialists working in related
fields about their research.
Together, we will delve into
some of the most significant
themes, events, and movements in
history.
Nathaniel: I'm Nathaniel
Andrews, Senior Editor here at
BOA, and in this episode, I
speak to Lucy Slater, a PhD
candidate at the University of
Leeds. Lucy's research focuses
on the history of Britain's
National Intelligence Services,
So Lucy, thanks very much for
joining us on this very chilly
intelligence management, and the
organisation and evolution of
bureaucracies such as the UK
Civil Service. Before starting
her PhD, Lucy completed an MA in
war and strategy, and her
master's thesis explored the
relationship between spy fever,
the fear of foreigners living in
Britain, and the establishment
of the Secret Service Bureau,
the precursor to today's MI5 and
MI6, in the years immediately
preceding the First World War.
In turn, Lucy's PhD thesis
delves into the development of
Britain's intelligence services
in the early stages of the Cold
War. I met up with Lucy in Leeds
back in December, where we
touched on a number of topics,
including the birth of Britain's
intelligence services, the
evolution of these services
after the Second World War, the
tensions between national
security and publishing, and the
types of source material
available to historians working
in this field. It was a wide
ranging and detailed discussion,
which I hope you will find
thoroughly engaging.
day in Leeds.
Lucy: Thank you for having me.
Nathaniel: So your work to date
focuses primarily on the history
of British intelligence. There's
lots that we can talk about, I
have prepared a few questions,
which will hopefully do justice
to your, your work. But before
we kind of go into the details,
I wonder if you could say a
little bit about what drew you
to this field? What, what
interests you about it, and why
do you think that it's, that
it's important?
Lucy: I think, like most people,
I got involved with popular
culture before, actually, the
history side of it. I might get
some eye rolls for this, but I
really enjoyed the TV show
Archer when I was younger. And I
was always interested in reading
around the history of things
that I was interested in, in
terms of a popular culture kind
of sense. I think I got that
from like, the Assassin's Creed
franchise when I, again, when I
was younger. More eye rolls. But
this idea that things can be
based on reality. And so I got
into reading the history of it,
and I really, really really
enjoyed it. And so any time when
I was at university doing my
undergrad, I would choose to do
topics related to British
intelligence. And I just kind of
got a bit hooked. I really
enjoyed it. It's always been a
subject area that's really
interested me.
Nathaniel: I've been a fan of
Archer as well. So I mean,
obviously, we can go on and talk
a bit about what you're working
on at the moment, your PhD
thesis. But before we do that, I
think it will be helpful to
maybe talk the listener through,
maybe give a brief whistle stop
tour of the history of British
intelligence from its
establishment until the end of
the period that you look at,
which is the 1960s.
Lucy: Yeah, yeah.
Nathaniel: Because your, your
master's thesis, which you're
currently turning into a journal
article.
Lucy: Hopefully, maybe.
Nathaniel: I'm sure you will.
Looked at the origins of British
Intelligence.
Lucy: Yes, yes, in a sense,
yeah.
Nathaniel: How about we sort of
go back to the 19th century and
talk a bit about how that came about?
Lucy: Yeah, yeah. So, I mean,
intelligence is always something
that the British state has done.
It's always been more of a
function of the state, rather
than necessarily a single
organisation. But what we often
talk about when it comes to the
history of British intelligence,
is kind of the reference to
these kind of core organisations
that we know of nowadays, MI5,
SIS or MI6, as it's known, GCHQ.
And for the initiated, all the
others that kind of come with
that group of British
intelligence organisations
linked through the Joint
Intelligence Committee and
Cabinet Office. But that took a
long time to develop, and in
1909 in this kind of field of
spy scares, invasion scares,
worries about whether or not a
new war would reflect the 1870
Franco Prussian war, with this
idea that there was this massive
wave of German spies in France
before the invasion. Prussian,
not German. But people felt that
we needed some kind of standing
intelligence organisation. There
had been previous, and there
were still some form of standing
organisations, but, but not in
the sense that was the one that
was created in 1909 which was
called the Secret Service
Bureau. And from that, the two
kind of aspects of intelligence,
counter intelligence, and
foreign intelligence, split into
what we now know as MI5 and SIS.
The First World War, was a, came
with a dramatic expansion of the
functions of intelligence, lots
more funding, lots more staff,
and they were able to really
establish themselves as
necessary organisations for the
state, and that became really,
really important. Unfortunately,
during the interwar period, you
then have this massive reduction
in funding. It's, a lot of
intelligence officials in the
future kind of reflect on it as
like a dearth of British
intelligence, a really, really
difficult time for them as
officials. But coming up to,
kind of, the war scares, for the
Second World War, an expansion
period began again. And again,
the Second World War was
completely transformative. It
wasn't an easy ride for all
intelligence organisations, MI5
in particular, had some, had
some struggles during during the
Second World War, but it was, it
was very, very important, and so
coming into the post war period,
most intelligence organisations
were put into some kind of
review process to try to work
out how to maintain some of what
was learned during the war, to
keep them as effective. They
always use the word effective
and economic. They always use
these words and try to define
what they should be in the post
war period as essentially
bureaucratic entities. So how to
retain the special, like
specialisms they, they created,
the effectiveness, without
having this huge amount of
wartime funding. And coming into
the Cold War, they did have to
demobilise quite significantly.
But then, of course, with the
influx of the Cold War, you have
a significant amount of
remobilisation that occurs. And
so they end up with huge
numbers. They end up with, so, I
think more, at some point, more
funding than they had done,
comparatively than during parts
of the war, not all of the war,
but parts of the war. And you
see the civilianisation of
intelligence during the post war
period as well, where
intelligence is realised, it's
really important for things like
the collapse of the British
Empire. It's important for
understanding Britain's
relationships with the
Commonwealth. It's important for
maintaining relationships with
the Americans. And so
intelligence becomes this thing
that is quite expansive, as well
as being a very specific
function. And there's a constant
struggle between, how do you
organise that as individual
organisations, but also kind of
this function, that British
states, the British state and
all states, has always done. So,
so kind of, coming into the
1960s, particularly something
that I focus on is, how did the
Cabinet Office in particular
become this center of
intelligence, coordination, and
cooperation, and why was it
this, this essentially civilian
office became so important? So I
guess, in a nutshell, that's
where I'll close off my little explainer.
Nathaniel: No thank you, that
was, that was great. I mean, 50,
60, years of history condensed.
I think we can obviously talk a
bit about what you refer to as
the civilianisation. Is that the
right term?
Lucy: Yes. I mean, that's what I
use.
Nathaniel: But maybe just to go
back for a second to that period
just before the First World War.
And I think I'm pronouncing
this, right, but a character
known as William Le Queux, is
that right?
Lucy: Yes, yes.
Nathaniel: Could you maybe talk
a little bit about the
significance of that kind of spy
scare, and the, I guess we could
call it hysteria, maybe in the
press and so on.
Lucy: Yeah.
Nathaniel: What's the
significance of that?
Lucy: I think we think that's
pretty foundational, to be
Nathaniel: I was very struck by
something that I read, I think
it was relation to Herbert
Asquith's personal
honest. So many of the stories
that were used by members of the
correspondence in which she
basically expressed, regret or
British state, James Edmonds, in
particular, who was a member of
at least sympathy for Germans
that were detaned in Britain
the War Office, used stories
that had appeared in newspapers,
stories that had, he'd got
directly from William Le Queux,
to argue his case for a need for
a British intelligence
organisation. And the Secrecy of
Service Bureau that was created
in 1909, two of its three
functions were specifically
aimed at countering this kind of
spy scare, working out whether
or not it was real. You know,
trying to identify actual
numbers of cases, rather than
worrying about, essentially,
people losing their minds about
whether every German could be a
possible spy. And because you
had people like Lord Roberts,
kind of standing up in, in the
House of Lords and proclaiming
that there were 90,000 or 70,000
German reserves hidden around
the country waiting to set up a
sabotage campaign, which was
more than there were German and,
Austrian, or German speaking
people in Britain at the time.
So there was this kind of sense
of paranoia that was, that was
public. Whether or not everyone
actually believed it, and it was
just a way to sell newspapers,
is something that, you know, I
think, I think, especially
literary historians, like to
debate. But it was something the
British state was aware of that
there was this growing number of
scare stories, and so the Secret
Service Bureau was essentially,
personally, I think, partly
established to try and work out
the veracity of what on earth
was going on. Was this even
real, and to maybe combat some
of that, or at least, you know,
prosecute some of these spies
that may be hidden around the country.
during the war.
Lucy: Oh, extremely.
Nathaniel: So he must have had
some awareness of this?
Lucy: Yes, he visited the camps,
and he wrote to his mistress
Nathaniel: And that's Robert
McKenna, who was then Home
that he was very unhappy with
the kind of state they were in.
I think a lot of the time, it
was more boredom than anything
else. A lot of people had been
taken out of work and placed in
camps, just in case they could
possibly be, be spies. And I
think he kind of reflected on it
as, as this is, this is
unnecessary, really, at least in
my mind. He referred to it as
the McKenna Net, this idea of
capturing all German people in
the country. And I think he
tried to kind of reduce his
Secretary. Is that right?
role. I'm not sure he had too
much of a role in it anyway, but
he tried to reduce his role in
being responsible for it in his
communications. So, yeah, I
think that was definitely kind
of a reflection of once, once
they saw where they've got to,
they were like, ah!
Lucy: Yes.
Nathaniel: Let's move forward a
little bit in time then, to talk
about what your PhD is on.
Because this was, this, this
establishment of the British
Intelligence Services, was the
topic, as I said, of your
masters research?
Lucy: Yes.
Nathaniel: What are you working
on at the moment then?
Lucy: So what I work on now is
British intelligence in the post
war period and how, essentially,
British intelligence became, as
I was saying earlier, a more of
a civilianised establishment,
part of the state, and sort of
reflecting on it, on
intelligence as if it was part
of the Civil Service, and how it
fitted into the culture of the
Civil Service, how we can
understand it as government
entities, rather than kind of
individuals or spy agencies, or
whatever you want to refer to
them as. How do we understand
intelligence organisations as
organisations within a broader
government hierarchy. And I know
that sounds very theoretical,
but the reality isn't, it's a
lot of kind of talking about how
people who are, say, members of
the Foreign Office, members of
the Cabinet Office, members of
the Treasury, reflect on British
intelligence and how they
thought that they should adapt
it for the future. And how they
thought that it should be
managed, how they thought it
functioned, whether it was
effective, whether it fit their
broader aims. Because we focus a
lot on the ministerial
responsibility for intelligence,
and obviously that's extremely
important. But when you actually
look through, kind of, a lot of
the documents and a lot of what
we have access to you within the
archives for British
intelligence, most of it is
civil servants talking about it.
And I think, I found that
intelligence officials also have
interesting ideas about whether
or not they consider themselves
to be civil servants, even
though they are technically part
of the British state, doing
things for the British state,
serving the state, and the
public. And so I think David
Petrie, who was director of MI5,
going like in the very first
part of the post war period, but
they were looking for a
replacement. He said, Oh, MI5
officers are not civil servants.
We aren't part of this, this
bureaucratic entity that the
rest of you are. And he
considered themselves to be
quite different. And so part of
what I look at is how we kind of
go from that to all of a sudden
the JIC, Joint Intelligence
Committee, is placed within the
Cabinet Office. It's part of
parcel, now, if you go on the
Cabinet Office website today, in
2022 the JIC Chair is there,
featured in the Cabinet Office.
And so I kind of look at this
transition in the post war
period from British intelligence
as these myriad of different
functions that had developed
during the war, to how do we
kind of settle them within the
post war British state. Which
also comes into discussions of
the changes to the Civil Service
that occurred during the post
war period, and changes to
understanding what the Civil
Service was, particularly when
it comes to, kind of, Atlee's
nationalisation and this huge
expansion of state functions.
There's a, there's a change in
understanding of what it is to
be, not just a civil servant,
but a public servant. And I
essentially argue that British
intelligence is part and parcel
of that.
Nathaniel: Thank you. So far, in
your research, what do you think
are the most significant changes
that you've encountered from,
you know, the end of the Second
World War, going into what
becomes the Cold War? Is it
organisation, the way in which
these different intelligence
agencies are structured? Is it
personnel do you think, is it
about the ethos of those
organisations? What, what stands
out to so far?
Lucy: I'd say personnel is
extremely important, and
particularly the personal
relationships that you end up
with, coming in. So a lot of
what I focus on in particular
is, is essentially who's talking
to who in order to make change
happen, to get funding, things
like that. And so looking at
relationships between Sir Edward
Bridges, who was head of the
home Civil Service, between
heads of MI5, heads oversea,
head of SIS, Norman Brook's
involvement in deciding the
future of intelligence services,
making decisions, having
influence and his relationships,
particularly with the chairs of
the JIC. He had very close
working relationships with
Patrick Riley and Patrick Dean,
which I think were
transformative to, I think,
without, without that
connection, we wouldn't have
seen quite the development that
we, that we did with the Cabinet
Office, moving. No not the
Cabinet Office moving, the Joint
Intelligence Committee, moving
to join the Cabinet Office. I
think that personal
relationships are extremely
important, and that Brook's
successor, Sir Burke Trend, he's
also had extremely important
relationships that helped to
solidify that placement of the
JIC within the Cabinet Office,
and therefore intelligence as
part of a Cabinet Office,
understanding of state functions
and disseminating knowledge in a
Cabinet Office kind of way.
Cementing the JIC as part of
that culture was a really
important thing that Burke Trend
did, particularly with the
creation of the Intelligence
Coordinator post by 1968, and he
wouldn't quite have got to that
point if he didn't share a very
reformative fervour with Sir
Bernard Burrows, who was another
chair of the JIC. So I think
that personal relationships are
extremely important to this
development. Another thing is
finance. What is also really
important to the development of
the post war British
intelligence is, is essentially
the fact that they realise that
these organisations, each year
are gaining more and more
funding because they need it to
combat the Cold War, to combat
Soviet spies in the UK, to
understand what's going on in
British colonies, or post
British colonies. And each year
they're trying to gain more and
more money. But people in the
Treasury are saying, well, we
don't actually have too much
oversight here. We don't
actually know how much these
organisations in total are
spending, because of the way
that the money sense things has
developed has been extremely
convoluted and complicated and
deliberately secretive,
obviously, because that's part
and parcel of these
organisations, is that they
didn't exist publicly. And so
part of the development of these
intelligence organisations is
just trying to work out how much
money they were spending, and to
try and get a grip on that. So
civil servants always have this,
we want to be involved. We want
to work with these people. We
want to make sure we have some
kind of oversight over them. We
also want to make sure that we
keep a grip of how much money
they're spending. I think the,
one of the, like, main points
was that the IRD, which was
Britain's kind of post war
propaganda department in the
Foreign Office, which isn't
really an intelligence
organisation, but it's part and
parcel of this, kind of, secret
state. It became the biggest
department within the Foreign
Office, and there was a 1963
review that essentially said, we
need to put a cap on spending
here. So, so yeah, money is an
extremely important motivator,
as well as these person
relationships, at least in my
mind.
Nathaniel: I suppose as well
that, you know, the amount of
money that a government
department receives is also a
pretty good indicator of how
important that department is
percieved to be by the state?
Lucy: Yeah, extremely. Yeah,
absolutely.
Nathaniel: And is part of it as
well, a process of, I don't know
Lucy: Yeah. I mean, the
involvement with the Americans
whether you'd call it
centralisation, but certainly
is extremely important. You
know, Britain, British
the closer collaboration between
these different departments and
intelligence is very, very aware
of their, essentially, their
also between foreign
intelligence agencies as well,
reliance on the US, to some
extent, because the US has
like the OSS, and what like the
CIA in America and so on. Does
that come into it as well? Just,
basically, just talking to each
significant more spending power
than the British do. And so the
other more?
British essentially maintain
certain intelligence functions,
which is something that I'm
working on as a part of my
thesis, actually, is they
essentially are aware of what
the Americans need, what they
value in the British
intelligence establishment, and
they help to kind of maintain
those aspects. So the unavowable
propaganda within the IRD that I
was just talking about, that
review from Lord Strang in 1963,
specifically says the Americans
really like us for the fact that
in the US, they weren't allowed
to publish things from the CIA
without having a little stamp on
it saying that it was from the
CIA. The British didn't have
that in law. We were able to,
you know, send things to
journalists that were supposedly
not anything to do with the
British state. And so the review
process essentially said, we
really like this aspect. The
Americans really like this
aspect. We can keep this funded.
And the same thing happened with
Macmillan in 50, um 57, 58
maybe? I might be getting my
dates wrong. But Macmillan sits
down and has a meeting with Sir
Norman Brook, the head of, the
chair of the JIC, and they
reflect on British intelligence
priorities. And he says, well,
isn't this a little bit too
military based? Do we not, kind
of, care more about what's going
on in Africa, for example? And
the intelligence establishment
people turn around and say,
well, actually, the Americans
really appreciate, but we still
kind of keep up with this sort
of more real politic, nuclear
politic, kind of intelligence.
So we maintain that because we
need the connection with the
Americans, and so this becomes,
it's very important for British
intelligence to maintain those
relationships in particular. I
wouldn't use the word
centralisation, though, mostly
because within the
conversations, especially with
the organisation of British
intelligence, the word
centralisation actually has a
few different meanings, and it
comes into a few different
debates. They don't really have,
like, one agreed idea of, like,
what a centralised intelligence
service would look like. And so
that becomes quite a, kind of a
hairy organisational debate, and
it's very much linked to Defense
Intelligence more than
intelligence in general. Kind of
by 1951 intelligence officials
and Sir Norman Brook agree that
we're never going to mould all
of our intelligence
organisations all together in
one, they're just too big. And
they saw the CIA becoming a
little bit too much of a, I
think, I can't remember who
refers to it as a Frankenstein's
monster, but, it's been
described as that. That's, those
aren't my words. And they didn't
want their intelligence to
become that. They prefer to have
functions in different sections.
So the word centralisation has a
few different meanings, that is
very much, like, part of this
broad debate on, how do we
organise intelligence from a
British perspective, with an
awareness of what's going on in
the US
Nathaniel: That leads us quite
neatly on to this question of
oversight, I suppose. And I'm
sure that a lot of our listeners
will be interested in that
tension between, well, first of
all, between oversight, you
know, between who is kind of
setting the policies and the
agendas of British intelligence.
Organisation, and then the
tension between those two
things, and freedom of
expression, personal privacy,
and so on. The right to, talk
and to associate. And obviously,
this is a very important debate
today. This is, we're living in
a kind of post-Snowden world. I
suppose.
Lucy: Yes.
Nathaniel: But going back to the
start of the period that you
look at, I mean, we have the
Official Secrets Act first in
1889 and then 1911 right?
Lucy: Yeah.
Nathaniel: And various
iterations since then. How
important is that debate, I
suppose, at the time of the
establishment of things like the
SSB, for example. I mean, do
people talk about this and say,
well, actually, does this
compromise the democratic
credentials of British
parliamentary democracy?
Lucy: I'm not sure I've come
across too much of that. But
most of my kind of focus is on
the stuffy boardrooms of British
government, rather than broader
conversations, broader cultural
conversations, on things like
that. And I would say that a lot
of the focus on the early
iteration of the Official
Secrets Act was actually making
sure that journalists couldn't
publish things that they, the
state didn't want things to be
published. Certainly, a big
focus was on the idea that
military secrets from the Second
Boer War and other military
campaigns had ended up in
newspapers, and they wanted a
way to help to control that. So
the Official Secrets Act always
had two tensions to it, and one
is this silence of making sure
that things that the government
wanted to keep secret stay
secret, and things that, that
are important to protect anyway
shouldn't make it out there. So
it's, it's kind of got, as I
said, this tension of, we want
to make sure that we maintain
our secrecy, and also secrecy is
important to an extent.
Certainly in the post war
period, the main struggle was
with the kind of D Notice
aspect, rather than the Official
Secrets Act. The D Notice was
something that was controlled by
a committee, and it was
essentially kind of a
gentleman's agreement. I don't
really like that term, but I
can't really think of anything
else on the top of my head. But
it was this, it was this, kind
of, we take editors out to
lunch, and we very politely ask
them not to publish such and
such a story. And people in the
post war period, particularly
journalists like Chapman
Pincher, who's one of the more
well known ones, said, no, I
want to publish this story
anyway, and so in 67 in
particular, but you've always
had this issue during the post
war period, a number of security
scandals, leaks making it into
the press. It's always something
that each government was annoyed
about or worried about. But in
1967 this, this all blows up
because Chapman Pincher says,
no, I want to publish and Wilson
attacks The Daily Express in, I
think it was the House of
Commons, but I could be wrong.
He attacks The Daily Express
anyway, and says, how dare you
publish this thing? And so the
entire, kind of, this polite
behind the scenes request of,
can you keep things secret for
us, we'd prefer for this not to
end up in the public eye, that
kind of partly collapses. But I
think it's, maybe Christopher
Moran, who argues that, that was
happening anyway, that it wasn't
necessarily this one turning
point that kind of collapsed.
But the press has always wanted
to publish this stuff because it
gets readers. So why would you
not? And so there's always been
a bit of a tension there. And
the way that the state did it, I
think it's very quintessentially
British. Take someone out to
lunch, maybe ply them with a bit
of alcohol, and hope that they
don't publish. It wasn't always
that successful, and the D
Notice affair is particularly
important. But then Wilson, as
well, has a very interesting
relationship between his more
radical side and what becomes
part of, or at least Richard
Crossman thinks, who's one of
the Cabinet members of Wilson,
thinks that he becomes quite
institutionalised by the end of
his first term. And I think
that's quite an interesting,
like, dynamic for Wilson in
particular. I think Harold
Wilson as a Prime Minister is
particularly fascinating when it
comes to things like that. As a
Labour politician in particular,
and as somebody that wasn't part
of the government for a long
period of time before coming
into office like many of his
predecessors had been so, yeah.
Nathaniel: I guess that the
situation of journalists who are
reporting on intelligence isn't
too dissimilar from your own
situation, as an academic
writing, like, the history of
British intelligence. In the
sense of, how do you acquire
your sort of source material?
What are you allowed to see?
Basically? So.
Lucy: Yeah.
Nathaniel: What kind, I mean it
sounds like a lot of the
material you're looking at is,
is very much an insiders
perspectives, right? It's kind
of cabinet meetings and things
Nathaniel: So it's that element,
as you say, of reading against
like that?
Lucy: Yes, yes, yeah. I think
it's difficult to research this
stuff and not spend a lot of
time in The National Archives in
London, second home,
essentially. So the TNA is, you
know, a big basis. And then
personally, I look at, because I
look at, quote, unquote,
managers of intelligence. I
spend a lot of time trying to
look for, like private papers,
going through memoirs, going
through diaries, as well as
these, kind of, official
documents. You find some very
bizarre stuff in there as well.
I really like going through the
private papers aspect of things.
But yeah, you always have this
kind of worry, I think,
particularly as an intelligence
historian, that I mean, this is,
this is a very much an argument
of Richard Aldridge, that it's
a, very much a curated
dimension, that whatever we get
that's released to the public
has been controlled by the
government, and they are, kind
of, letting us know their
narrative. But there's only so
much that you can, you can get
anyway, when it comes to
official documentation, you
know, not all of it will ever
make it to public domain.
Because they just had so much
the grain, really, and, like,
kind of thinking about what is
paper, and a lot of it got
destroyed. And it's the same
when it comes to British
intelligence, in fact, more so.
And you also have the thing,
that a lot of things happened
with meetings, or behind closed
doors and weren't recorded. And
so there is an element of
filling in the gaps. But I think
official documentation still has
its merits, certainly, and
particularly when it comes to
trying to look at it from a
different angle. So as I say, I
try to look at it in terms of
bureaucracy and culture and, and
understanding that how
management and oversight worked
more than understanding, I'd
say, it's so much harder to
research things that are like
functions, or the ins and outs
of the organisations themselves,
rather than, rather than them as
kind of part of this broader
entity. And I have a lot of
sympathy for people that try to
do that, because that is a much
harder thing than what I try to
deal with when it comes to
official documentation.
not recorded, and say.
Lucy: Yeah.
Nathaniel: The meetings that are
not recorded.
Lucy: Yeah. I mean, that's,
that's the hope that you're
filling in those gaps. Yeah,
Nathaniel: Fantastic. Well
though, I should mention that at
British Online Archives, we do
have a collection which was
first put together in 2017,
actually using material from The
National Archives, titled
Military Intelligence Files:
Land, Sea & Air, 1938–74. So it
kind of covers quite a lot of
the period that you write about.
As a historian working on a
topic like this, how important
are online archives to, to that
work in terms of accessibility,
for example, going to, down to
London, as you say, can be
difficult.
Lucy: No, accessibility is
fundamental. And I would say
because, part of the reason that
I even got into the subject was
the accessibility of certain
online digital archives, The
Secret World, From the World
Wars to the Cold War, digital
archive was, was vital to me,
first kind of getting into using
primary sources in this field.
So digitisation is a great, I
always say, it's a great
launching point, because you can
start, you can get an idea of
what there is there. You can,
you know, work from, from those
original sources, from wherever
you are. You don't need to spend
loads of money on getting to
London, for example. And you can
still, you know, get a good idea
of what's in the archives, and
then once you go, you can fill
in those gaps. And you know, I
think they're great,
particularly for students as
well, getting students into a
field, giving them a taster of
working from archive sources
that aren't things that are just
given to them in class. I think
that's really important for
students to get that idea of how
to work with primary sources on
their own to some extent. And I
think digital, digital sources
are so important for that.
There's only so many copies of
the British Foreign Policy
volumes that you can keep in a
library. So, so having digital
access for for students is, I
think, so important and really
useful, because you don't really
want to throw them into doing
their dissertation in third year
and they've barely looked at an
archive or anything. And I think
that things like this as well,
they're great for increasing
accessibility. They're really
fundamental, I think. Really,
really good.
Nathaniel: I would imagine, that
undergraduate students, to be
very excited to take a module or
a course on this topic. I mean
it's something I wish that I had
looked at as an undergraduate
student. And so, yeah, I mean,
thank you very much for taking
the time to chat.
Lucy: No, thank you very much
for listening to me!
Nathaniel: Been a pleasure. I'm
sure our users will find it
fascinating. And best of luck
with your submission of your PhD
thesis as well.
Lucy: Thank you!
Nathaniel: And your other work,
and hopefully we can talk to
again soon.
Lucy: Absolutely. Yeah. thank
you so much for having me, and
thank you for listening.
Nathaniel: Ah, pleasure. Thanks
very much, Lucy,
Outro: Thank you for listening
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