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During the Second World War, Ruth Brook escaped Nazi persecution in Germany and followed her wartime sweetheart, a Lancaster Bomber into the RAF. As a WAAF, she quickly found a sense of her own purpose.

Ruth was offered a job as a cook, a typist or a flight mechanic. She picked up a spanner and her life began. From welding to hydraulics, WW2 was a intense training ground for a young woman starting out in life. In her 101 years Ruth has packed a lot in. From working as a flight mechanic to a post-war publisher, and then a psychotherapist, Ruth has lived a life rich with adventure. I was lucky enough to meet this extraordinary woman in her London home.

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Former policewoman and district nurse turned novelist, Jean Fullerton has written over 20 novels but recently published something a bit closer to home, her memoir, A Child of the East End. In conversation at the Write Idea Festival, Jean shared eye-watering stories of her childhood in Wapping, the curse of family secrets, bum-stamping and sexism in the police force and why we romanticise the past, Jean proves there is no such thing as a ordinary life. I started by asking her what made her bare her soul in the pages of a book…

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In the 19th century it was surprisingly easy for a woman to be consigned to the misery of an asylum. Many in fact weren't actually mentally ill.

Husband tired of his wife? A woman who bore an illegitimate child? A woman who didn't want to marry the man her parents had chosen for her? Or anyone, in short, who didn't conform to the narrow standards of society.

Once a woman was incarcerated, it was almost impossible to get out of a place often described as 'death traps'.

Author Louisa Treger came across the astonishing true story of investigative journalist Nellie Bly, who intentionally got herself committed to an asylum in order to write a blistering expose and lift the lid on conditions. She was 'instantly hooked and intrigued' as she told me in this fascinating conversation.

Louisa also discusses her fascinating new novel, The Paris Muse, a fictionalized retelling of the disturbing love story between talented French photographer Dora Maar and Pablo Picasso. Louisa shares her motivation behind ensuring this talented woman is no longer a footnote and how she breathed life into this extraordinary love affair.

Thank you to our media partner: Family History Zone – a website covering archives, history and genealogy. Please check then out at www.familyhistory.zone and consider signing up for their free weekly newsletter.