‍IN MAY 1940 a confetti of parachutes drifted into Rotterdam Harbour. Dangling from each silhouetted disc were German soldiers dressed, not in Nazi uniforms, but skirts and blouses. Each one of these ‘women’ carried a submachine gun.

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‍“When the disguised paratroopers landed, men and women working as cleaners and servants emerged from basements and back doors wearing German uniforms and joined them. They were ‘sleepers’ — refugee traitors who had come to Holland faking asylum from Nazi oppression.”

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‍These were the words of another exclusive story by Hilde Marchant who Express editor, Arthur Christiansen called ‘The Best Woman reporter in Fleet Street’. A wispy-haired, tiny woman with a deep voice and a sackful of courage.

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‍Her own story of newspaper fame and glory has never been properly told and tragically ended in her death ‘down and out’ under a railway arch. The girl who drank and dined with Ministers and Generals and charmed the nation with her words, was alone and broken … another victim of the Street of Broken Dreams.

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‍Not only that, even though she had been one of the highest-paid reporters on Fleet Street, she didn’t have any money for her funeral.

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‍Three days after the invasion of the Netherlands, the Daily Express published Hilde’s war story under the headline “Germans dropped women parachutists as decoys”.

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‍The story, taken from a sailor she had tracked down who witnessed the attack, was peppered with the term fifth columnist – which she used in her reportage of the 1936 Spanish Civil War for traitors poised to support an enemy invasion from within. And within days of her exclusive, every household in Britain and every newspaper was using the term.

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‍Hilde was born in Hamburg in 1916 to an English father and German mother. After the Great War the family moved to England and settled in Hull, where Hilde became a telephonist on the Hull Daily Mail. But she had a dream, and it didn’t take her long to use her persuasive skills to get herself into the newsroom she saw as her future.

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‍In less than a year, Allied Newspapers sent her to London for a trial as a trainee reporter for the Daily Sketch. She didn’t waste her time. Within days of her arrival, reporters could find her chatting to senior editors in the corridors.

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‍Everyone agreed she had the most beautiful, dark piercing eyes that seemed to capture whoever she was talking to. She was always interested in what they said and she made no secret of her ambitions at a time when men dominated newsrooms.

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‍In April 1936, she turned a dull story of a model railway exhibition into compulsive reading for people not interested in model trains and it won the attention of Christiansen, who had been appointed editor of the Express three years earlier.

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‍Her story didn’t focus on the models or the rail tracks and signal boxes, it centred on an engine driver from London Midland Rail Services who had jumped off his footplate at Euston and hurried to the exhibition at Westminster, still in his overalls, to view the show.

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‍Christiansen called in Express reporter Bernard Hall who had covered the exhibition and told him that his version was cliché-written by comparison. “I’m amazed we gave it space,” he said. “This girl Marchant is obviously the reporter we need. I will bring her to Shoe Lane before the Mail gets the same idea!”

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‍And so, Hilde, now 20, kept walking up the staircase to fame at a salary of 30 guineas a week and generous expenses on Britain’s leading newspaper. She shone from the start and Christiansen always gave her top billing.

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‍But not only did she bring in touching human stories behind the tragedies and glories of life, she never stopped working, even if she didn’t have a story to write, she would do research for other journalists; fetch them cuttings, make phone calls for them, even get them cups of tea.

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‍She never seemed to go home, drinking in the Fleet Street pubs with colleagues at night and swearing with the best of them. Reporters and photographers were welcome at the bar of her little flat in Doughty Street. She had affairs, and a long one with Express managing editor Herbert Grunn.

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‍One morning she entered Christiansen’s office, pleading to be sent to Madrid to cover the woman’s angle of Spanish Civil War. He said she could go for 10 days and added: “But cut out that trick of yours which makes you start and end sentences with prepositions.”

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‍“Why should I?” she replied, “I write as I talk, and people talk to me!”

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‍Christiansen knew she was right but added: “Don’t be saucy! Just remember that soldiers have wives, bring me back their stories!”

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‍Chain-smoking Hilde covered the Abdication and became known for her war reporting, especially the Blitz.

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‍“They pushed prams and carts or took the best of their homes on their backs, climbing through streets that had once been two neat rows of houses and were yesterday like a ploughed field.”

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‍Hitler’s bombing of Coventry kept her on Page One: “A bomb had dropped on a home for blind men, they led each other out into the same darkness they were already trapped in”.

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‍Christiansen believed it was too dangerous for Hilde to stay in Coventry and ordered her back. But she refused and slept in her car until the German bombers returned the next day. Her story of their return made Page One and impressed Winston Churchill so much, he ordered copies to be sent to all the British embassies around the world.

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‍NEXT WEEK: Part Two: Drinking with her lover on the roof of the Savoy during the Blitz; their breakup and Hilde leaves the Express to join the Daily Mirror, then Picture Post; how she ended up wandering Fleet Street and begging for drinks; her health goes downhill and how her funeral was paid for.

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‍A BIG thank you to our talented colleague, former William Hickey editor Christopher Wilson for alerting me to the story of Hilde, our fallen star from the past. There but for the grace of God go all of us.

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‍A TRIP TO THE OTHER SIDE

‍Pall bearer Henry Taylor, known to be accident prone, was at the front of six men solemnly taking a coffin to its grave near the end of a funeral at Kensal Green Cemetery last week, when he caught his foot on a stone and stumbled. As he fell, the other bearers let go of the coffin, which fell on his head, and he dropped dead into the grave with the deceased on top. Women mourners screamed but the widow of the man who was being buried burst out with hysterical laughter. Police News, November 1872.

‍Marie and her Prairie husband

‍FROM THE PALACE TO A SHACK IN

‍THE WILDERNESS OF THE PRAIRIE

‍HOW MANY women would give up living in a castle with solid gold plates, real silver knives, 13 acres of luscious gardens, blazing log fires, 1,000 rooms and the best chefs for every occasion to travel 4,000 miles in the grip of winter, across the storm-tossed Atlantic on a sailing ship and hundreds of miles by horse and cart across baron wasteland in -20deg Centigrade? Not many.

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‍And at the end of the journey, waiting patiently would be her lover, to carry her over the threshold of a ramshackle wooden cabin with no windows or doors and holes in the roof.

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‍One woman did just that – English seamstress, Marie Downing in 1887, the Press reported.

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‍The 20-year-old dresser for Queen Victoria at both Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle lived in a fairytale world before leaving the opulence of the court to become a poor farmer’s wife in rural America at the end of the Gold Rush.

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‍I came across the story when I was reading an archive copy of an American newspaper, The Fargo Forum (Don’t ask). It’s the main newspaper for Minnesota and North Dakota, home of Theodore Roosevelt and the Sioux Indians.

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‍But instead of anything to do with Roosevelt, I came across a story of a local museum that had an authentic dinner dress of Queen Victoria’s. How come, you might ask? Victoria never went to America.

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‍And so unfolded a wonderful love story involving our Queen; one of her butlers; Marie who was Victoria’s personal dresser at the time … and the mystery of nine luggage trunks.

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‍Marie, who was a talented dressmaker, first met Victoria while working as an apprentice in a sewing shop in London, where she made clothing for the royal children. Her duties required her to travel to Windsor Castle for measuring them, and one day, the Queen took notice.

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‍She was impressed and invited Marie to work for her in the Palace and have a room at Windsor Castle. She was to be the Queen’s official dressmaker and selector of gifts for functions. Marie was thrilled.

‍As she was also a maid-in-waiting, she always stood by the Queen’s chair, anticipating her every need. She witnessed discussions over state affairs with world leaders and intimate family moments with Prince Consort Albert and their nine children.

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‍Marie didn’t get a salary but was provided with stylish clothing, food and numerous gifts, including diamonds that later helped purchase her lover’s North Dakota farm.

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‍As the months went on Marie took a shine to handsome royal butler Harry Williams who was tall, strong and full of dreams. They had an affair, using the many empty rooms of Windsor Castle. Harry wanted to be a landowner and he had read all about the rush to buy land in Canada and America. So, in 1882, he set sail across the pond to buy a farm and begged Marie to follow.

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‍But at this time as Marie was in the Queen’s service, Victoria had to give permission for her to marry. It took two years to persuade her royal employer to let her leave for what the Queen called “savage America and live on the edge of civilisation”.

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‍And so began Marie’s perilous journey in the winter of 1884. She was heading for a tiny log cabin home in Rolla, Dakota Territory. The Queen only consented on one condition: Marie had to return a marriage certificate proving she had married Harry, which she did.

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‍But Marie was met on arrival in New York by Custom officials who couldn’t understand why she had more luggage than she had claimed. Nine extra trunks all labelled in her name. Finally, she realised what had happened, Victoria had sent them a present. To begin her new life “on the edge of civilisation”.

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‍They were packed with expensive gowns; silverware; jewellery; coats; fur wraps; clocks and expensive timepieces. Soon, Marie and her trunks were on their way. Once she arrived at the train station in Minnewauken, Dakota Territory, she was reunited with Harry, whom she hadn’t seen for five years. They immediately married in nearby Devils Lake and sent the marriage certificate to the Queen.

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‍Next, they boarded a horse-drawn cart-sleigh for the 100-mile journey to their home — in 40-below-zero temperatures. The delicate parasol she had brought from England offered little protection from the prairie winds.

‍Marie was dismayed that their home wasn’t an English cottage but a rustic log cabin with no doors or windows and a half-finished roof. Neighbours let them stay until the cabin was liveable.

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‍As Mr and Mrs Williams settled into their new life, Marie became a local celebrity. Townsfolk eagerly visited to see and even touch the royal artefacts she had kept. She often lent gowns and jewellery to local brides, bringing aristocratic splendour to the prairie.

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‍Over time, the couple sold many of these treasures to finance their farm, buy supplies and purchase more land. The Queen even sent letters and Christmas gifts — including a gold horse saddle that was later stolen from the barn.

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‍Marie told the Forum newspaper: “Even though I was sometimes lonesome in the early days when we had so few neighbours, I never wished to return to England or to the luxuries of the life I had formerly lived.”

‍Marie died on Dec. 5, 1933. Harry followed on March 23, 1940.

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‍SUE PUTS THE RECORD STRAIGHT

‍THANK YOU Sue McGibbon, wife of our late chum and member of our parish Robin who messaged me about my feature last week on Bob Monkhouse. In the archive piece the interviewer found it hard to like Monkhouse and yet Sue tells us he was one of the funniest, warmest and kindest men she knew.

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‍Says Sue: “When Rob interviewed him the transcripts were the easiest, I ever worked on. His love for his disabled son was heart-warming and his pride in his daughter just lovely. Bearing in mind, Bob had prostate cancer and was recovering from treatment at this time, I am not surprised he was a little less vibrant than his youthful TV appearances.”

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‍Thanks, Sue, as always.

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‍TERRY MANNERS 

‍13 October 2025