Paddy Ridsdale
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Dame Victoire Evelyn Patricia "Paddy" Bennett, Lady Ridsdale DBE was Ian Fleming's secretary during World War II and was the model for his character Miss Moneypenny, James Bond's loyal, long-suffering secretary. Bennett had also been Julian Ridsdale's secretary.
She was wife of Sir Julian Ridsdale and daughter-in-law of Sir Aurelian Ridsdale. She served as an intelligence operative during World War II.
It was later disclosed that she had assisted Fleming's counter-intelligence efforts during World War II. She was responsible for creating a fictitious identity for Axis consumption of a body which had turned up drowned, The Man Who Never Was. The body was "disguise[d] as that of a naval officer, complete with totally convincing "secret" papers showing a different plan of attack ... [t]he body, appearing to be a casualty from a shot-down plane, would then be floated ashore in Spain, where local German spies would find it ... Fleming's task was to make the body totally convincing. The book covers the minute attention paid to detail, which included placing theatre tickets and love letters in 'Major Martin's' pockets ([1])." Paddy Bennett wrote those love letters.
She was chairwoman of the Conservative MPs' Wives club for which she received a damehood in 1991, ten years after her husband's knighthood.
She survived her husband, who died in 2004; they had been married since 1942 and had one child, a daughter.
