(1912-2011)
Stafford Hotel, St James’s Place, London SW1A
We’ve come across Karen Newman’s work before and will see it again. Yesterday’s Anayat Noor Khan bust and later Special Agent Violet Szabo. Today it is Nancy Wake hidden to the side of a bar. I feel conscious that my casual wear signals that I’m not staying in the hotel as I approach the doorman at the Stafford Hotel, but I’m permitted in and start searching. I find her in the corner and take in the similarity of Newman’s Khan bust, partly because Wake (and indeed Szabo) are of the same era. In the World War 2 she joined the French Resistance and later the Special Operations Executive where she undertook several dangerous missions in the lead up to D-Day on 6th June 1944.
The American Bar at the Stafford was frequented by Wake where she would enjoy a tipple of gin and tonic and had a reserved bar stool. In her honour, the bar makes a cocktail named, ‘White Mouse’ – the name given to her by the Gestapo because of her ability to evade capture.
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