The Oldie pin-up of the week is legendary codebreaker Patricia Owtram, aged 101, who was crowned The Oldie Secret Agent of the Year in 2024.
During World War II, Pat and her sister Jean Argles were referred to as the Codebreaking Sisters.
Planet-brained Patricia intercepted radio transmissions in German and encrypted code – when still a teenager. After transcribing and decoding the messages, she sent them on to Bletchley Park.
Despite all this dashing derring-do, Patricia never breathed a word, even to her sister. They both signed the Official Secrets Act – and stuck to their promise.
Later in the war, Patricia worked for General Eisenhower in London at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force, searching German documents for evidence of war criminals.
After the war, she took degrees at St Andrews and Oxford and was a Harvard fellow. She became a journalist and a TV producer, developing such hallowed programmes as Coronation Street, University Challenge, Ask the Family and The Sky at Night with Patrick Moore.
What toughness: she once said, ‘It usually raises a laugh when I tell them I may be the only old lady in Chiswick who knows how to use a Sten gun.
