SUZANNE Louise stood at the front of the tram, issuing tickets to the passengers. It moved off with a jolt, throwing her off balance, and she clutched at the bag strapped round her waist.

"I was terrified," she said. "I had been given a bomb to deliver and I had it hidden underneath the bag with the tickets. Every time the tram moved, I thought it would go off and blow everything up."

Suzanne Louise, whose real name is Irene Ward, was just 20 when she was recruited by the Belgian Resistance and, for two years, she risked her life every day. Once, she was captured and imprisoned for two weeks, but she was released because there was no evidence against her.

"People tell me I was brave, but I wasn't. I spent all that time being terrified. Every time the door bell rang, I thought it was the Gestapo and I prayed every night to the Virgin Mary to help me through."

A new film focuses attention on the Resistance movement, particularly the women who worked undercover to undermine the Nazi regime in occupied Europe. The adaptation of Sebastian Faulks' best-selling novel Charlotte Gray stars Cate Blanchett as a young Scotswoman who is recruited by the Special Operations Executive after her pilot lover is shot down. She volunteers to go undercover in France with the intention of finding her sweetheart and is gradually drawn into danger herself.

Now 80, Irene lives in Guisborough with her husband Barny. The film and a television documentary about real-life Charlotte Grays, screened last week, have brought back her memories of the war. "Watching a programme like that brings it all back to you. It seems unbelievable when I think about it now but it's all true, I can guarantee that," she said.

Irene became involved with the Resistance when she was approached by a man at the cinema. He whispered to her that he needed her help urgently and pushed some papers into her bag.

"I had no idea who he was, but he sounded so desperate, I went along with it," she said. "A few days later two men came to see me. I thought they could have been the Gestapo and I pretended I didn't know what they were talking about. But they showed me their credentials from the Resistance and said they had come to thank me. They said that what I had done had saved about 20 people."

After that, she found herself gradually drawn into the Resistance network. At first, she carried messages and made the coffee, but her colleagues soon began asking her to carry out more dangerous missions.

"I was frightened but I always said yes, because I was proud and I wanted to show people I could do it," she said.

On one occasion, she was sent to the house of a doctor sympathetic to the cause. She helped to operate wireless equipment to make contact with a fishing boat, which took refugees to safety in England.

She was also asked to take up a post as a maid to a local noblewoman who entertained German soldiers. It was her job to listen to their conversations as she served them at dinner and pass on any information to the Resistance.

The bomb she carried round with her all day on the tram was safely delivered and her colleagues used it to blow up a German train packed with ammunition. But the Germans took revenge, rounding up 40 fathers and sons from the district and shooting them.

"That sort of thing happened a lot. It was dangerous work and I knew I could have been killed at any time but, because I was young, I didn't think about it. I was usually shaking because I was so scared but I was also excited because I knew I was doing something for my country."

Towards the end of the war Irene met Barny, a young British soldier. They married and moved to Guisborough in 1947.

l Charlotte Gray is playing at cinemas throughout the region.