I was delighted to be selected to deliver this year’s Fairbrother Lecture at Reading’s Biscuit Factory on 28th April 2026, entitled The Woman with the Secret Typewriter: Class, escapism and empowerment in Mills & Boon.
Click here to watch the lecture
The Fairbrother Lecture is a University public lecture named after Jack Fairbrother who, in 1929, became one of the first students to be awarded a PhD from the University of Reading. The lecture is an annual event at which a Reading doctoral researcher presents their research to a wider audience.
Mills & Boon romances have long been a beloved escape for millions of readers – but the women who actually wrote them often lived far from the glamorous worlds they created. Many came from modest or working‑class backgrounds, carving out space for creativity at kitchen tables, in snatched hours, and sometimes in secrecy.
It was a privilege to bring these women authors’ hidden lives into the spotlight. Drawing on a remarkable treasure trove of material from the University’s Special Collections, this presentation uncovered the hopes, struggles and everyday realities of the women who shaped one of Britain’s most iconic literary brands. Through an array of unexpected insights from the archives, this talk invited its audience to rethink what Mills & Boon really meant for the women behind the typewriters – a means of escape, and in one extraordinary case, a story of survival.
Above: (L-R) Amy Longmuir, Oyinkansola Olotu, Professor Parveen Yaqoob OBE, Vic Pickup, Okiemua Okoror and Vice-Chancellor Professor Robert Van de Noort CBE