Award-Winning Author Simon Parkin to Speak at The Paignton Club 
Wednesday 18 March, 14:30 | The Paignton Club, Paignton, Devon 
The Paignton Club is delighted to welcome the award-winning author and New 
Yorker contributor Simon Parkin for a special afternoon talk on Wednesday 18th 
March at 14:30. Parkin will discuss his acclaimed book A Game of Birds and Wolves: 
The Secret Game that Revolutionised the War — the extraordinary true story of how 
a group of young women and a retired naval captain used a board game to help win 
the Battle of the Atlantic. 

In the winter of 1941, with Britain on the brink of 
starvation and surrender, Winston Churchill came 
to believe that the fate of the nation hinged on a 
desperate, largely invisible struggle at sea. German 
U-boats were sinking merchant ships at an 
unsustainable rate; ninety-five per cent of Britain’s 
fuel and seventy per cent of its food arrived by 
convoy across the Atlantic. Should losses continue, 
the country could fall within months. 

Into this crisis stepped Captain Gilbert Roberts, a 
forty-one-year-old naval officer entrusted with a 
secret mission. Based in Liverpool, Roberts led the 
Western Approaches Tactical Unit, working 
alongside eight members of the Women’s Royal 
Naval Service — the Wrens — to devise a 
revolutionary approach to naval strategy. On a 
linoleum floor painted to resemble the Atlantic 
Ocean, the team restaged convoy battles in 
miniature, moving model ships in exercises that 
resembled the childhood game Battleship. Through 
play, debate and meticulous observation, they developed a counter-manoeuvre 
codenamed “Raspberry” — a breakthrough that helped turn the tide against the U
boats and demonstrated the startling power of wargaming. 

“Sheds compelling new light on the ferocious struggle being played out in the mid
Atlantic between cocksure German U-boat captains and the convoys on which they 
preyed.” 
— Giles Milton, The Sunday Times 
“Splendid… a triumph.” 

— John Lewis-Stempel, Sunday Express 
“A fascinating story, wonderfully well-told… The characters of the main players, 
notably the Wrens, are beautifully and colourfully put across.” 

— Admiral Sir Michael Layard KCB, CBE, former Second Sea Lord 
“Stunning.” 

— Niall Kilgour CBE, former Rear Admiral, Submarines 

Of particular local interest, Captain Gilbert Roberts made his home in Devon after 
the war, where he became deeply involved in civic life. His postwar years in the 
county form an important chapter in the story of a man who helped safeguard Britain 
at its darkest hour.

Simon Parkin is a Fellow of the Royal Historical 
Society and the author of three major works of 
historical non-fiction. His book, The Island of 
Extraordinary Captives, won the Wingate Prize, 
while his most recent work, The Forbidden Garden of 
Leningrad, was shortlisted for both the Orwell Prize 
and the Royal Society Book Prize in 2025 and named 
an Economist Book of the Year. 

This promises to be a fascinating and illuminating 
afternoon, offering a rare glimpse into one of the 
Second World War’s most inventive and least-known 
operations — and into the life of a man who later 
called Devon home. 

Event details:
Wednesday 18 March 
14:30 
The Paignton Club, 1 Esplanade, Esplanade Road, Paignton TQ4 6ED 
For further information, please contact  
Richard Pearce from RBL, [email protected] Tel: 07810 832731 
Or  
Gordon Oliver on 
[email protected]. Tel: 07802 761420