Trail-blazing journalist Mea Allan was born in a leafy suburb of Glasgow in 1909 and made her name as a tenacious reporter on the grim streets of a city ruled by Peaky Blinders-style gangs, even interviewing members of the IRA. Soon she went south to Fleet Street, where she reported on life on the Home Front, witnessing the worst of the London Blitz – and experiencing it too, as she was bombed out herself. As the war turned in favour of the Allies, she was the first woman accredited to the British Forces as a war correspondent, accompanying them across the Continent, witnessing the liberation of Belsen and the plight of thousands of displaced persons.

After the traumas of the war, she immersed herself in village life, became an avid gardener whose works on the subject were immensely popular and finally found love and set up home with photographer Grace Woodbridge, with whom she collaborated on several books. By the time she died in 1982, Mea had 12 non-fiction books to her name, four novels, thousands of yards of newsprint, and a legacy that is begging to be told.

FELICITY GOODALL is a former journalist and freelance foreign correspondent. She wrote Radio 4 play about Mea Allan Change of Heart (1999), and has written for publications such as The Sunday Times, Business Week, The Listener and The Guardian. She spent 15 years as a producer and presenter for BBC Radio 4 and has written five books of non-fiction. She was researcher and interviewer for a Radio 3 Docudrama about PTSD, Soldiers in the Sun, which was shortlisted in the Mental Health Awards 2008.