Joan Bright Astley

Joan Bright Astley,

OBE (27 September 1910 – 24 December 2008), born Penelope Joan McKerrow Bright, was a British intelligence officer and organizer during World War II. She organized the Special Information Centre (SIC) for Winston Churchill during World War II. As a young woman, she dated Ian Fleming and is believed to be one of the three or four women whose attributes were used by him for the character of Miss Moneypenny.^[1]

Biography

Joan Bright Astley was born in Monte Caseros, Corrientes, Argentina. Her father was an English accountant; her mother, a Scottish governess. Described as a difficult teenager, she attended a number of schools, learning shorthand and typing and working as a secretary at the British legation in Mexico. In the 1930s, she was offered a job, which she declined, in Nazi Germany, teaching English to the family of Rudolf Hess.^[1]

In 1939, she was told by a friend that she might have a chance of work if she went to a certain

Hastings Ismay, a close associate of Winston Churchill's.^[1]

During the war, she dated Ian Fleming, and said of him, "I thought he was awfully attractive and fun, but elusive. I think he was a ruthless man – he would drop somebody if he didn't want them any more. That would be it."[1] She added, "No torrid love affair."^[1]

She served as an administrative officer at several wartime and postwar conferences.

Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1946 New Year Honours, when she was described as "Principal, Offices of the Cabinet and Minister of Defence."^[2] In 1949, she married Colonel Philip Astley, first husband of Madeleine Carroll, whom he had divorced in 1940. Colonel Astley died in 1958. In 1971, Joan Astley wrote of her wartime life in a memoir, The Inner Circle: a View of War at the Top, and in 1993 co-authored a book on Sir Colin Gubbins. She died on Christmas Eve 2008.^[1]

According to Samantha Weinberg, author of The Moneypenny Diaries, which she published under the name Kate Westbrook, Astley is one of three or four women used by Fleming as the basis of Miss Moneypenny.^[1]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ "Obituary". The Independent. 28 January 2009. Archived from the original on 9 June 2022.
^ "No. 37412". The London Gazette (Supplement). 28 December 1945. pp. 275–276.

Sources

Bailey, Roderick (11 March 2009). "Obituary". The Guardian.
ISBN 978-1-444-79895-1

[ind-1] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ "Obituary". The Independent. 28 January 2009. Archived from the original on 9 June 2022.

[2] "No. 37412". The London Gazette (Supplement). 28 December 1945. pp. 275–276.

[1]

[2]

Authority control databases
International	FAST ISNI VIAF
National	Israel United States
Other	SNAC