Sunderland's Cook sisters' heroic story now a BBC podcast with Helena Bonham Carter

A radio documentary telling the history of two remarkable Sunderland women is now available on BBC Sounds.

Ida and Louise Cook were sisters whose book royalties, love of opera and sheer nerve helped to make them war heroes and life savers.

Ida and Louise were born in Sunderland in 1904 and 1901 respectively. They lived in Croft Terrace beside the Chesters pub.

They moved to London and Ida became a best-selling, prolific romance novelist writing as Mary Burchell. This success helped to fund trips to Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

Using their love of opera to plausibly make regular visits to the country, they smuggled jewellery and other expensive items out of Germany.

These items, which mainly belonged to Jews, were brought across the North Sea as without some financial guarantee, refugees were not allowed into Britain.

The sisters allowed guards to assume the jewellery was fake by openly wearing it.

In the event of someone realising the jewellery was genuine, Ida’s cover story would have been: “We were two nervous British spinsters who didn’t trust our families at home and so when we went abroad we took all our jewellery with us.”

They couldn’t save any more lives after Britain declared war on Germany in 1939, making the cultural trips impossible. Ida died in 1986; Louise in 1991.

Their story is now available as a BBC Radio Four podcast called The Extraordinary Cook Sisters.

The programme is presented by the double Oscar nominee Helena Bonham Carter. It will be available to download until April 2025.