Joan Grant and Dennis Wheatley's secretaries in the 1940s:

Vera and Iris Sutherland

The Sutherland sisters in the 1930s
From the top, clockwise:
Vera, Grace, Iris (bottom), and Rena

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Vera Sutherland's specially inscribed copy of
Joan's first book, 'Winged Pharaoh' (1937)

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Joan Grant's 'Scarlet Feather' (1945)
and the printed and personal dedications

The question posed by the Great Hunters was:
"How many people are happier because you were born?"

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Rena Sutherland's inscribed copy of
'Winged Pharaoh' - it is likely that all of
Vera's sisters received signed copies

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Iris Sutherland

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Some of Iris's correspondence with Dennis
Wheatley while she was working on
'The Man Who Missed The War'

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Dennis Wheatley's 'The Man Who Missed The War'
(1945) and the printed dedication

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A sample of DW's post-war
correspondence with Iris.

They continued corresponding for many decades.

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Both DW and Joan Grant had various secretaries over the decades, but each had a secretary with whom they were particularly close, and these two secretaries were sisters. Their names were Vera and Iris Sutherland.

Vera and Iris were the two youngest of four sisters born to Major James and Christina Sutherland (née Anderson) in years after the First World War.

In her autobiography 'Time Out Of Mind' published in 1956, Joan described the important role Vera played in the production of her book 'Winged Pharaoh', which had caused a sensation when it was published in 1937.

In it Joan wrote how the book had first been dictated by her trance-like to her husband, how the book needed to be typed up, and how she was grateful for 'the providence that sent Vera Sutherland' into her life. She later described how Vera produced 'prodigies of typing', and how, when the book was finished and the galley proofs were appearing, Joan insisted on adding a further section, and how 'Vera beamed, for she was always delighted when I refused to be bullied'.

Their closeness is further evidenced by the fact that Joan dedicated her 1945 book 'Scarlet Feather' to Vera.

In the third volume of DW's autobiography, 'Drink and Ink', published after his death, DW wrote how, while he was still a civilian, albeit one doing military consultancy, Iris came to be his secretary from January 1941 to January 1942, his previous secretary having left abruptly for war work:

Finding another secretary at this time, when practically every woman who could even type, let alone take shorthand, was employed in the hugely swollen Ministries or offices of firms engaged in producing essential goods was no small problem. But in that I was very fortunate.

Joan Grant's secretary, a Miss Sutherland, was the eldest of four sisters. The youngest, Iris, was then eighteen, and having had an excellent secretarial training, was just ready to take a job. She proved to be a very pleasant, able and well educated little girl with a fine head of red hair.

DW got this slightly wrong - Vera and Iris were in fact the youngest of the four sisters, Alexandrina (Rena) being born in 1904, Grace in 1908, Vera in 1912 and Iris in 1920.

The Sutherland sisters were born to Christina (née Anderson) and James Sutherland, a major in the Gordon Highlanders, and all had interesting lives. Iris and Dennis Wheatley kept up an intermittent correspondence throughout their lives, and Iris was well-known to various members of DW's family. After working for Dennis, Iris worked as a secretary in the Ministry of Defence, and then in SIME (Security Intelligence Middle East) in Egypt. During the immediate post war period she helped DW with the typing of at least two of his novels, and had one of them dedicated to her. In 1947 she married Michael Smith, a captain in the Royal Dragoons, with whom she had six children. He left the family in 1965 and she had to fend for the children unassisted. She resumed her education in 1968 and became a teacher. When she retired, she relocated to Swaffham in Norfolk and was notable for running the town's annual arts festival, which attracted a number of important poets. She died in 2021 at the age on one hundred.

Once her Joan Grant days were over, Vera married Leo Long, who had obtained a working class scholarship to Cambridge and was a member of the Apostles. He had a distinguished war, ending as a Colonel in Military Intelligence.

Rena married Eric Leighton in the India Police, who later became a security chief for Kenneth Kaunda, the first president of Zambia.

Grace spent her life working for Lloyds Bank and never married.

The Sutherland sisters were clearly interesting and exceptional people, and it cannot often have been the case that two famous authors were looked after by such capable and clearly charming siblings.

My thanks are due to James Sutherland-Smith and the other descendants of the Sutherland sisters for their help and generosity in compiling this article.