Tangential Research Lead on R.W.G. Stephens via T.A. Robertson

For a while now, I’ve been thinking that I should (a) write a review of Gentleman Spymaster, Geoffrey Elliott’s book about T.A. Robertson and (b) reach out to Mr. Elliott to see if he has contact info for Robertson’s daughter, in the hope that she might have some snippet of information from her father’s files to reveal the death of Tin-Eye Stephens. Yup, back to Stephens. Right now, all roads seem to lead to Stephens, but many of them peter out into nothingness. Let’s start with Geoffrey Elliott.

Geoffrey Elliott – Author of Gentleman Spymaster

In order to make sure that I found the correct Geoffrey Elliott, I had a look at the inside cover of Gentleman Spymaster.

“Geoffrey first researched the secret world of the Special Operations Executive for his book I Spy, in which he followed his father’s trail as an agent in the former Yugoslavia during the Second World War. Research for this latest work has taken him deep into MI5 files and specifically those of counter-intelligence.

A retired banker who trained as a Russian interpreter during the Cold War, Geoffrey Elliott now lives in Bermuda.

Well, that all seems quite helpful. But, within two minutes of beginning my search for contact information, I came across a link from St. Anthony’s College, University of Oxford, published on 11 May of this year. Apparently Geoffrey Elliott passed away on 1 May 2021, just over six months ago.

Geoffrey Elliott: 22 April 1939 – 1 May 2021

Honorary Fellow Geoffrey Elliott passed away on Saturday 1 May at his home in Bermuda at the age of 82. Geoffrey was a long-time friend of the College and a very generous benefactor, who, along with his late wife Fay Elliott, took a great interest in the work of both Fellows and students, especially those in the Russian and East European (now Russian and Eurasian Studies) Centre. The Elliott Lecture, which normally takes place every 2 to 3 years, is named after him and Fay.

Geoffrey, who was born in London in 1939, had Russian and East European forebears. But it was during compulsory National Service in the 1950s that he learned Russian from scratch, and to a very high standard. Following that, he worked for Reuters before moving into merchant banking, first with Siegmund Warburg in London and then as a Managing Director of Morgan Stanley in New York. He also served as Director of the Bank of Bermuda and Chairman of Latsco Shipping.

A very widely-read, and intellectually curious man, with a keen (and often self-deprecating) sense of humour, Geoffrey turned to authorship during his semi-retirement and retirement from banking. During that phase of his life, he enjoyed, and found helpful, his connection with St Antony’s, with both Fellows and some of the College students providing useful advice and, on occasion, research assistance. One of Geoffrey’s books was co-authored with an Emeritus Fellow of St Antony’s Russian Centre, Harry Shukman. Their account of the National Service Russian Course, Secret Classrooms: An Untold Story of the Cold War (2002), is a vastly entertaining, as well as informative, account of the Joint Services School for Linguists ‘in which over 5,000 young men were semi-secretly pushed through intensive training in Russian’.

Geoffrey’s other books include, I Spy: The Secret Life of a British Agent (1998), a fascinating voyage of discovery of his elusive father who, in the words of the book’s blurb was ‘dropped blind into Serbia in 1942 on a mission for Special Operations Executive – and spent much of the war in a Nazi prison camp’ and whose ‘nomadic life entangled him in a complex web of deception, glamorous women, Communist double agents and interrogation at the hands of the Gestapo and the Hungarian secret police’. One of Geoffrey’s sources of information for that book was the first Warden of St Antony’s, Sir William (Bill) Deakin, who (in a more successful mission than that of Geoffrey’s father) was parachuted into wartime Yugoslavia. Geoffrey’s other books included (as sole author), From Siberia with Love: A Story of Exile, Revolution and Cigarettes (2004) and (as co-author with Igor Damaskin), Kitty Harris: The Spy with Seventeen Names (2001).

Geoffrey Elliott was elected to an Honorary Fellowship of St Antony’s in 1997, having previously been a Senior Associate Member, and, to the end of his life, retained his links with the College. His long and very happy marriage to his wife Fay ended with her death in August 2020, after which Geoffrey’s own health went into decline. Both Geoffrey and Fay are remembered with great affection and appreciation by all in St Antony’s who had the privilege to know them.

Well, there goes that lead. Makes me wonder what became of all of the material he amassed during research for his books. I did find an article in the Bermuda Gazette from 12 May, 2021, which noted that Geoffrey and his wife were avid art collectors and donated their collection to Bermuda. According to the article, Geoffrey and his wife Fay had two children, a son named Tim Elliott (that will rather hard to track down) and a daughter, Sonia Sleep. I did find one reference to a Sonia Sleep working for Globalexicon (a cancer fund-raising run in 2018) but nothing else via Google. A skimming search on Ancestry suggests that Sonia C. Elliott married Peter G. Sleep in the early 1990s and that the couple may live in Richmond, Surrey. Might be our Sonia… might not. It gets a bit dicey to draw any conclusions since there are quite a few Sonia Elliott’s (or even Sonia C. Elliott’s). I could pay 192.com and get her address but it seems a bit of a long shot.

When I first read Geoffrey Elliott’s book on T.A. Robertson, several years ago, I took notes and one of those notes might lead to a promising path… the name of TAR’s daughter.

Belinda A. (née Robertson) McEvoy – Daughter of T.A. Robertson

I have come across Belinda’s name in other books (some by Ben MacIntyre) where she is mentioned in the Acknowledgements. Seemed like a promising lead to pursue except… a bit of genealogical digging yielded this bit of information…

Belinda Anne McEvoy passed away on 7 April 2019 in Malvern, Worcestershire.

Now, it could be another Belinda A. McEvoy but… I somehow doubt it. The deceased Belinda Anne McEvoy was born on 26 September 1942, according to Find-a-Grave. And Belinda Anne Robertson’s birth (with mother’s surname being Grice Hutchinson) was registered in October 1942. Elliott’s book confirms that TAR married Joan Grice-Hutchinson on 18 April 1936.

And… in case there is any doubt. The Telegraph had a brief obituary announcement

Belinda Anne. Beloved wife of David, died on Sunday 7th April [2019], in the presence of two of her daughters Lulu and Izzy. Alice was flying back from the Dominican Republic. Service of Celebration at The Church of the Good Shepherd, Hook Common, Welland Road, WR8 0AX, on Tuesday 30th April at 11.30 a.m.

Sooo… there goes another potential avenue of enquiry. Stephens is proving an exceedingly hard nut to crack… somewhere there must be just that one little bit of information that will break the case wide open…