A Girl’s Guide to Spying: an interview with Holly Webb
It sounds like the very unlikely plot of a spy thriller: teenage Girl Guides recruited as messengers for MI5 during the First World War, trusted with secret documents in a world of espionage and danger. Unlikely yes, but true – and it’s the real-life story that inspired bestselling author Holly Webb to write something completely different from her beloved Animal Stories series.
In A Girl’s Guide to Spying, 14-year-old Phyl is recruited by her Guide captain to work as a messenger for MI5. Desperate to help the war effort, she’s thrilled to be working with spies – until the deeply unpleasant Major Warren suddenly disappears. When Phyl and her younger sister Annie suspect he may be a double agent, the girls must solve the mystery before war secrets are revealed, with help from their friends in the Rose Patrol.
Webb discovered this extraordinary piece of history more than a decade ago. A friend gave her a signed copy of How the Girl Guides Won the War by social historian Janie Hampton, knowing Webb’s connection to Girlguiding. ‘There’s about half a page of information about these Guides working at MI5. And it’s not even really about the girls at MI5, it’s about them being so good at their job at MI5 that at the end of the war, they were taken to France, to Versailles, to be emissaries at the Peace Conference between different countries, which is just incredible.’
The book includes a photograph of the young women at Versailles, ‘in their guiding dresses with badges literally all the way down their sleeves,’ Webb recalls. The image stayed with her for years, percolating in her imagination, until she raised it with her editor during a lunch to discuss possible projects and met an unequivocal ‘Yep, go away. Come back with something about that, please.’
Webb threw herself into research with enthusiasm. ‘You can find quite a lot of MI5 documentation in the National Archives now, some of which mentions the Guides, which is really interesting and very cool because they’re basically photographs of the original documents with cover sheets that say ‘secret’ on them in enormous black letters.’ She also studied early Guiding magazines and the original handbook, which revealed that early Girl Guides were far more adventurous – and radical – than modern perceptions might suggest.
‘There was a strong expectation that girls could pretty much do everything that boys were doing,’ says Webb. ‘I really wanted to have these girls being introduced to things they thought were utterly weird, but realised they could and should be allowed to do as well.’ This included jiu-jitsu, which features in the book and came partly from Webb’s research into suffragettes for an earlier novel, when she learned that Christabel Pankhurst had a group of women trained in the martial art to rescue her from police during demonstrations.
Girlguiding itself was deliberately progressive for its time. ‘There was a very strong sense that a Guide was a sister to all Guides and that social class shouldn’t affect how you interacted with other Guides,’ says Webb.
At the time, this adventurous and egalitarian spirit was extremely controversial. One of the fun elements of the book is that Webb starts each chapter with a contemporaneous quote from newspapers, government announcements and the Girl Guides’ Gazette, including an utterly horrified letter to the editor of the Spectator about out-of-control girls.
Whether out of control or not, the various shenanigans and friendship fallings in and out of the Rose Patrol meetings are a delight to read and the mix of ages, along with the ever present Annie, who’s a pure joy, helped Webb to overcome the challenge of making a 14-year-old protagonist feel relevant for her target nine-plus readership.
Webb grew up devouring detective stories – ‘at about nine or 10 I discovered Sherlock Holmes then moved on to Dorothy L Sayers, Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh’ – and so writing this historical mystery was a natural progression from her earlier Maisie Hitchins detective series for younger readers. But it also allowed her to explore more moral complexity than she could with that age group.
That’s very evident in the character who turns out to be the traitor but also in the different kind of threat presented by Major Warren. Webb had discussions with her editorial team the appropriateness of including his lecherous behaviour towards the young women at MI5, but felt it was necessary. ‘It wasn’t too explicit, but it was important because girls in that situation would’ve been so vulnerable and women working away from the home …it would’ve been unusual if they weren’t being sexually assaulted, I suppose.’
The book doesn’t shy away from showing that Britain wasn’t always on the right side, either. When anti-German riots erupt and a haberdashery shop on their street, run by a German mother and young daughter, is attacked, Phyl and Annie recognise their own neighbours in the crowd. ‘I’ve seen photographs of the aftermath of those riots and people painting up signs saying, ‘We’re Russian, not German,’’ Webb notes. The contemporary parallels aren’t lost on her – the scene feels disturbingly relevant to recent anti-refugee violence.
Webb’s own connection to Girlguiding runs deep – she’s been involved for 43 years and has led a Brownie and Guide unit for the last 28 of those. Some of the activities in the book are things her own unit still does, including marching into a horseshoe formation (‘badly – anyone who is into proper marching would be utterly horrified’) and playing Kim’s memory game. Girlguiding has even introduced a new codebreaking badge that uses the Pigpen Cipher featured in her book.
However, Webb’s relationship with the organisation has become complicated. In December, the previously very inclusive Girlguiding was forced by legal action to exclude trans girls and leaders. Webb has since resigned as an Ambassador for Girlguiding South West England, a role she held, and loved doing, for two years. ‘I didn’t feel like I could stand up and represent Girlguiding after that decision,’ she explains. But she’s keen to emphasise her continued respect for the organisation: ‘I want to make it very clear that despite my current disagreement with recent decisions, I think it’s an amazing force for good, and I’m very proud to have been part of it.’
For a writer best known for her Animal Stories series – more than 60 books about kittens and puppies, with the first published 19 years ago – this historical mystery represents a genre shift. However, there is, inevitably, still a dog. And what a dog. Webb had previously been dissuaded from including a bull terrier, the breed of dog she grew up with, in her animal stories, being told it was ‘not really quite the right breed that we want to focus on’ – but Hector the extremely loyal bull terrier is perfect in this story, and has his own part to play in the war effort. Webb promises that Hector will continue to play a waggy role in the following stories as the Rose Patrol mysteries continue.
Book two is set in a theatre – ‘there was a huge suspicion of theatre people during the First World War’ – fulfilling Webb’s childhood love of Noel Streatfeild’s ballet and theatre books. Book three will involve munitions factories, where there were Guide units and widespread fears of sabotage.
What does Webb hope young readers will take from these books? ‘I would love readers to recognise how young all these girls actually were, but how self-reliant and strong… they weren’t particularly special people. They were everyday girls, and we can do more than we think we can sometimes.’
With research that brings history vividly to life, characters who grapple with moral complexity, and a genuine love for the Girl Guides who made their own slice of history, Webb has created something both thrilling and meaningful – a reminder that ordinary girls have always been capable of extraordinary things.
Michelle Pauli is a freelance writer and editor specialising in books and education. She created and edited the Guardian children’s books site.
A Girl’s Guide to Spying is published by Rock the Boat on 12 February 2026.
