Jude Dobson
Jude Dobson, ONZM, has been researching and writing, producing and directing WWI and WWII content since 2018. She won a New York Festivals Award for best historical audio documentary in 2023 for a documentary that featured WW II aviators telling their stories. Jude is a 2025 finalist in the same category for “All Blacks at War” - a documentary about the 13 All Blacks who lost their lives in WW I. The late Pippa Latour, who was a British secret agent in France in World War II, chose Jude to tell her story and they formed a close bond before Pippa's death in 2023, at the age of 102. Jude, who lives in Auckland with her husband, will be a familiar face to many from her time as a television presenter on shows, including 5.30 with Jude.
2025 festival sessions
The Last Secret Agent
Jude Dobson in conversation with Tessa Nicholson
9.30am-10.30am Saturday 19 July, Whitehaven Room, ASB Theatre Marlborough, $25
The late Phyllis "Pippa" Latour was a covert special operations agent who parachuted into occupied France in 1944 and sent 135 secret messages conveying crucial information on German troop positions in the lead-up to D-Day. Following the war, Pippa settled in New Zealand where she raised four children. For seventy years, Pippa's contributions to the war effort were unknown - even to her family. Pippa was finally given her due in 2014 when she was awarded France's highest military decoration, the Chevalier de l'Ordre National de la Légion d'Honneur (Knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honour). Before she died in 2023 in Auckland, at the age of 102, she was the last surviving secret agent who served in France in WWII.
Buy tickets
Library Lecture - The Last Secret Agent
3:00pm-3.45pm, Saturday 19 July, Marlborough Library at Te Kahu o Waipuna, $15
Hear the story of WWII secret agent Pippa Latour — shared by Jude Dobson in a 30-minute talk, followed by audience questions.
Buy tickets