SITTING at her desk, under the eaves in her study in Iffley, author Julie Summers can gaze at the dreaming spires in the distance to provide her with the inspiration she needs for her next writing project.

Her latest book, Our Uninvited Guests, about stately homes during the Second World War, has been critically acclaimed.

Thanks to extremely detailed research Ms Summers has unearthed fascinating stories about how life in country houses changed radically during the war years.

There is a section on Blenheim Palace, where the Long Library contains more than 1,000 panes of 18th-century glass. Just two of these panes were smashed during the period when the Malvern College boys were staying.

The author, whose factual wartime study Jambusters inspired ITV’s hit drama series Home Fires, is delighted with the positive reception for Our Uninvited Guests but is not resting on her laurels. She has been researching her next project, a biography of former Vogue editor Audrey Withers (1905-2001).

Ms Summers said: “She was an extraordinary woman - very left leaning and that did cause some issues between herself and the New York editor.

“I came across her when I was researching one of my previous books, Fashion on the Ration.

“She had no children and all her relatives have died so that has made my research more difficult but there is a family connection.

“I’m still waiting to find a commission but my agent and editor are very confident.”

Audrey Withers (1905-2001) was the second child of Dr Percy Withers and Mary Summers.

Mary Summers (1870-1950) was the youngest child of John Summers from Stalybridge.

Her older brother, Henry Hall ‘Harry’ Summers (1865-1945), was Julie Summers’ paternal great-grandfather.

The Withers book will be Ms Summers’ 13th and it’s a return to biography for the historian who has become a specialist on how the war affected the nation.

Her last biography was The Colonel of Tamarkan:

Philip Toosey and the Bridge on the River Kwai.

The title was published in 2005 and told the story of her grandfather, Philip Toosey, the officer who had built the notorious bridge.

The mother-of-three’s latest document of the war years, Our Uninvited Guests: The Secret Life of Britain’s Country Houses 1939-45, took four years to complete and focuses on how life changed radically at stately homes, including at Blenheim Palace and at Waddesdon Manor near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.

Ms Summers said earlier: “Our Uninvited Guests is 154,000 words long.

“The research was one of the most exciting projects I have undertaken and I got to see inside some amazing country houses.

“We always hear about how many houses were lost in the 1950s but the war did help to save lots of them, as the situation prompted decisions to hand on stately homes to the National Trust.”

Ms Summers said the the juxtaposition of opulence with everyday activities during the Second World War was right at the heart of the book.

She explores how Blenheim Palace in Woodstock hosted Malvern College for the first academic year of the war, before accommodating MI5 and later the British Council.

Schoolboys slept in the Long Library and one photograph featured shows furniture being unloaded in September, 1939.

It included 20 pianos, school books, physics and biology equipment as well as goal posts, cricket stumps and enough beds to accommodate 400 boys.

French chateau-inspired Waddesdon Manor near Aylesbury was used to house 100 nursery school and orphaned children from London, with a staff of 27 helpers.

Polish special agents trained in the grounds of Audley End House, Essex, learning to forge and lie their way into occupied Europe in the old nursery.

And Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire, former home of Queen Victoria’s favourite Lord Melbourne, was used as a maternity home for women from the East End.

The recovery ward was in the Prince Regent’s suite, decorated with Chinese-inspired wall paper and when women woke up after giving birth they said they had ‘died and gone to heaven’.

Coleshill House near Shrivenham also gets a chapter as it was the training headquarters for the Auxiliary Units, the secret British Resistance in the event of invasion.

Ms Summers was born in Liverpool in 1960 and grew up first on the Wirral and then in Cheshire.

Although the greater part of her childhood was spent outside pursuing any number of outdoor activities she always wanted to be a writer.

But for the first 20 years of her life after university the author worked in the art world.

She was Deputy Curator at the Henry Moore Foundation from 1989 to 1996, and she was Head of Exhibitions at the Ashmolean Museum from 2000 to 2004.

It was then she decided to take the nerve-racking decision to become a writer full-time.

That decision, she says, was the best she has made in her career and part of the joy of being a writer for her is conducting the research.

It’s difficult to drag Ms Summers away from her computer screen under the eaves and occasionally she works late.

But she reluctantly waved goodbye to the dreaming spires for a brief spell earlier this year when she was researching her biography of the fashion editor.

“I needed to find out more about Audrey Withers so in April I spent three days at the Condé Nast archive in New York and will probably go back there in the autumn,” she revealed.

“The archive in New York was impeccable - in excellent condition but some of the archive at Vogue London was, as far as I’m aware, pulped in 1942 in a drive to save paper during the war years.”

Ms Summers added that she loved researching her books and it could be another two years before she is ready to start putting pen to paper.

She added: “People often ask me why I am so fascinated by the Second World War.

“My answer is that it is not war that interests me but the way people coped.

“In extreme situations such as war or mountaineering ordinary people find extraordinary strength and courage - that is what I enjoy learning about.”

Ms Summers writes in the mornings and finds her biggest problem is not sticking to her routine but tearing herself away from writing at the end of the day.

Her loyal companions are two Border Terriers Tiggy and Mattie, who keep her entertained and fit, and sleep in two old wine boxes under the window in her study.

The author often gives lectures on her work and appears at a number of literary festivals.

She said on her website: “My 20-year career in the art world took me all over the world, setting up exhibitions, looking at works of art, advising on questions about sculpture.

“It was a difficult decision to give up such a lovely life but the combination of a growing family that I wanted to be at home to enjoy, and a burning desire to write, won over.

“My choice of subject matter for my books has meant that travel is often possible and I have been lucky enough to have some exciting adventures in Thailand, Sri Lanka and Australia. Who knows where next?”

Our Uninvited Guests: The Secret Life of Britain’s Country Houses 1939-45 is published by Simon & Schuster, price £20.