Defying the Iron Curtain: Margaret Spencer’s Daring Cold War Exploits

As noted in the previous post, the first part of Margaret’s second memoir/letter (published 28 July, 2014) covered the tale end of the Second World War, while the second part delved into her Cold War Adventures. The third and final memoir/letter (published 25 August, 2014) continued the Cold War theme, so I have lumped the Cold War pieces together. The newspaper title for the second memoir covers all facets of Margaret’s allegiance. In the subheading “Margaret Spencer, who secretly served in the SOE” and in the sub-subheading “Margaret Spencer, the Secret Intelligence Service spy”. Was it SOE or SIS or both? Or neither?

Delivering a Female Package

Margaret now jumps forward to 1952. At this point, she was newly divorced, still living in Eastbourne, and with a seven-year-old daughter. The following vignette raises a few questions.

I then served as a district nurse for the next 17 years. In 1952 I went on the most frightening trip of all and I am pleased to say it was my last. It was during the Cold War and we were dangerously near war with Russia. We needed to get a woman over the border who was married to a Russian.

Now, to go it meant lying to my mother, lying to my seven-year-old daughter and lying to my employers.

However I flew to near the Russian border – where I cannot disclose – and there I changed into a male Russian officer’s uniform. It was a good job I was thin in those days and wore short cropped hair. I learnt the map by heart and drove an army car with the woman in the boot.

Next was the test of my nerve because I had to drive through the border control just giving a cursory salute. I knew if I was stopped I would have been shot because I could not speak a word of Russian.

I was very frightened, however all went well and after my cargo was delivered, I drove into a forest where I changed out of uniform and was bundled into the boot of an Embassy car and back over the border and was home again in 48 hours. So that was the end unless an emergency occurred.

I guess my most obvious questions is: Why could the woman not been driven across the border in the boot of the embassy car? If it worked for Margaret, why not with the mysterious woman? At least Margaret acknowledges that she didn’t speak a word of Russian, although I’m not sure how convincing she would have been as a Russian officer. And, she admits that her absences did create some questions in the minds of family and employers. We’ll need to keep this story of the mysterious woman in mind, because there is another part to it, that Margaret shared in her third memoir. Stay tuned.

Loneliest Job in the World

For now, Margaret leaves aside the intelligence intrigue and gives us a bit of context to all of it.

In 1964 I got married again and had 20 happy years. In 1967 Len and I took over an old people’s home. In 1977 I surrendered my gun and retired from active service and from work to nurse my sick husband who died in 1984. In 1995 I was informed I was now absolved from the Official Secrets Act and the rest of my life was my own at 75, big deal.

“… big deal”?? That is a rather odd addition to what is ostensibly a written memoir. Again, similar to some statements in her second memoir, it sounds a bit more like a verbal telling of the tale.

I would just like to say it is the loneliest job in the world and that is what causes breakdowns which I saw so many times at the ‘house’. You can talk to no-one and I mean no-one.

Just imagine when you come home from a scary job and all you want is a hug and understanding but not for us.

Perhaps it was a lonely job, but even Violette Szabó’s parents ultimately new what she was doing, even if they didn’t know the details. As for Margaret, there would have been an SIS handler, at the very least, but she makes no mention of such a person. Perhaps she told no one because none of it actually happened?

“Jesus was My Friend”

In the next paragraph, we take a rather awkward detour.

Jesus was my friend and I could talk to him and leave my troubles with him, I used to sing the last verse of O My Saviour Lifted to myself. It goes like this – Bringing all my burdens, sorrow, sin and care, At thy feet I lay them, And I leave them there.

Well, Margaret did remember the fifth verse of the song. It is spot on accurate. It was clear from the first post that Margaret was a very religious person. She had mentioned during her divorce, how devastated she was when she learned that her first husband (David L. Scott) was an atheist. She would never have married him had she known. Later, we learned that Margaret ostensibly went to Ely Cathedral (Cambridgeshire) for 18 months to serve as the lead soprano. I wonder, as she sat and recounted her story, if she sang a bit of this verse outloud to whomever was recording.

There were no medals or thanks for the men and women of the shadows but what we did was vital to our country so we did our duty.

Many of the SOE operatives were awarded medals, by Britain and France. Even Margaret, in the previous post was supposedly brought before the King and and thanked for keeping an eye on his daughters as they mingled with the crowds during the VE Day celebrations.

To Moscow with Love

We now move to the third and final memoir that Margaret wrote (or dictated). The subheading of this particular article in the 25 August, 2014, edition of the Eastbourne Herald reads: “I have visited Russia four times in 50 years. The first time was 1942 in the middle of the Second World War.”

Dang. I thought we had finished with Margaret’s wartime adventures! Luckily, 1942, in the Margaret Spencer timeline is relatively wide open with only the bombing of Marks & Spencer in December 1942, so we can easily fit in this next adventure.

There was an English woman married to a Russian living in Moscow and it became necessary to get her out to save her life.

This, as it will turn out, is the same woman that Margaret spirited back over the border, into Russia, in 1952. Just as a bit of context. Given that this event took place in 1942, and Russia and England were Allies… I’m not sure why it was necessary to spirit her out of Moscow in order to save her life. Unless they were afraid that the Germans were going to take Moscow, but that danger had receded after the German offense stalled in January 1942. As a bit of context, Nazi Germany invaded Russia in June 1941 and made significant advances through the summer and fall before Russia’s best ally, the Season of Winter, froze the German advance. But let’s get back to Margaret. Perhaps the mysterious woman was deathly ill and needed to be flown to England to save her life?

The job fell to me. I flew to Helsinki where I had a makeover into a high-ranking Russian officer. Believe it or not, I was a “skinny lissie” in those days and, with a beautiful black beard, I made a good man.

Soooo… back to context. In June 1941, after Germany invaded Russia, the Russians launched an attack on Finland. Fed-up with Russian aggression, Finland declared war against Russia and allowed German troops into Finland to begin a counter-offensive against the Russians. Officially Finland saw itself as a co-belligerent with Germany against Russia, and tried to maintain ties with many of the western countries. On 6 December, 1941, however, Britain declared war on Finland because Finland was at war with the Soviets, who were allies of the British. Finland remained at war with Russia until 1944.

Back to Margaret, who, in 1942 (while Britain was at war with Finland), flew into Helsinki, Finland. That seems unlikely. She then claims that she received a makeover into a high-ranking Russian officer. She claims that she was outfitted with a beautiful black beard, but it would appear that Russian officers were clean-shaven during the Second World War. After the horrors of chemical warfare during the First World War, most armies forbade their soldiers from having facial hair as it prevented gas masks from having a snug fit. The exception would have been soldiers stationed in deserts, jungles or on submarines, where water restrictions and hygiene made the daily shave problematic. I’m not sure that petit, “skinny lissie” Margaret would have made a “good man”.

I then flew to Minsk where I was met by an army car with a Russian army driver (one of us) who drove me to Moscow. Now, of course, we were allies of Russia but I can assure you they were anything but friendly, so suspicious of strangers found in their midst they would shoot first and ask afterwards.

For all their security we found that the higher the officer impersonated, the easier it was to fool them; nobody dared stop you.

Margaret flew to Minsk? In German-occupied Russia? Virtually impossible. Minsk, now the capital of Belarus, had been invaded and occupied by the Germans from the summer of 1941 until 1944. Margaret would have us believe that she landed in German-occupied Minsk and met a Russian army car, with a Russian army driver, who then drove her, dressed as a high-ranking Russian officer, to Moscow, a distance of over 700 kilometers, through German-occupied territory and then through the war zone of the Eastern Front. While Germany was at war with Russia?? One could wonder if Margaret is perhaps a bit confused and thinks that this took place during the Cold War, but no, she mentions in the next line that the Brits were allies of Russia. Her story is impossible.

When we arrived at Ida’s home we terrified her and her family in the Russian style. She thought she was being arrested but not by any means could we indicate otherwise.

We drove way out into the country where I told her in my normal voice that she was going home to Ipswich and that, for the rest of the journey, she would travel in the boot of the car. I shall never forget the look of sheer joy on her face.

I am not going to bore you of details of our devious journey home but I was glad when it was over; Russia was a terrifying place.

I really don’t know what to say. The story of Margaret getting to Moscow is impossible, so this return journey would be equally impossible. If they drove back to Minsk, through the Eastern Front, German-occupied territory, etc, etc, then poor Ida must have been pretty cramped after over 700 km in the boot of the car. Let’s move on.

Smuggling the Female Package back into Cold War Russia

We heard about Margaret’s 1952 trip to Cold War Russia in her second memoir. She also touches upon it in this, her third memoir.

My next trip was 1952 to take Ida back over the Russian border. We were now in the midst of the Cold War and dangerously near World War Three, this time with the Russians.

Of course, we had beaten Germany by now so, obviously, I went over to Germany, again in the same disguise and with Ida in the boot. This time I drove myself over the border to a pre-arranged spot in a forest where I was met by a British Embassy car, So, out with Ida who was met by her husband. I then got into the boot and over the border and home and I vowed never to go back to Russia.

In the second memoir, Margaret was fairly vague, and said that she flew to “near the Russian border” although she doesn’t tell us how she ended up in the forest where she changed into a Russian officer’s uniform. In this latest bit, she tells us that she went over to Germany and drove herself across the border into Russia. Except, Russia had quite a few Eastern Bloc countries as buffers between it and the West, places like Poland, Hungary, Estonia, Lithuania, etc. It would have been no small thing to have driven from West Germany into East Germany, and then through Poland into Russia. Where she was met by a British Embassy car… who hadn’t been tailed by the Russian security service? I feel for poor Ida… it must have been hard for her to have been away from her family for 10 years, and for her to then reappear magically in 1952 with no stamps in her passport, and no good story as to where she had been. I’m sure the Russian security services had quite a few questions for her, given that she was a British national.

Return to Gorbachev’s Russia

While Margaret vowed never to go to Russia again (hard for an SIS agent to do, I would think), she did return 35 years later. In September, 1987, she went to Russia on holiday with her daughter.

Well, here I am going back to Russia with my daughter on holiday so I wasn’t frightened this time so long as we obeyed the rules.

So when I knew we were going I wrote to Ida, via the “diplomatic bag”, in the hope she might still be alive. The reply, via the embassy was that she was now a widow and working in the hotel where we were to stay for three days.

Margaret would have been 67 years old and her daughter would have been 42 years old at the time of this trip. I’m not sure that diplomatic bags were for personal correspondence, or how Margaret would have found the connections to get a letter into said bag. Conveniently, Ida was working in the very hotel where Margaret and her daughter were staying for three days. Although, I have to admit that three days is not a very long holiday.

In the plane going over it was evident that the stewards had guns in their belts, which gave you a rather spine-chilling feeling. They brought round forms to list all your jewellery and money. This was not for our protection but to make sure that nothing extra was taken out of Russia. No religious literature, or crosses to be worn.

At the airport, coming home, we had to produce any goods we had bought and, within a few roubles, had to account for our money, and a check was made to make sure that not a single rouble was taken out.

The flight attendants carried guns? Interesting but unconfirmed. I did read that cameras were also prohibited but Margaret makes no mention of that. I can’t comment on the statement that one needed to account for one’s jewellery and money. I know that when I went to East Berlin in 1987, we had to convert 25 West German Marks into 25 East German Marks, a currency that was actually worth far less than the West German currency. But, coming out of East Berlin, even though it was technically “illegal” to export East German Currency, we didn’t have to account for every Mark, and I still have some East German currency, coin and paper.

After we were settled into the hotel, which was very basic, Ida made contact with me. I wouldn’t have recognised her, she was a wizened-up, very old lady but I knew she was my age.

I find this a little hard to believe. Ida “made contact”? It just seems odd.

I was able to learn a lot about Russian life from the ordinary folk. No wages were paid from their work but the state put them into flats or bed-sitters, according to the size of their family, all furnished the same with the barest necessities and open to inspection to make sure no extras were obtained.

They were given the equivalent of £5 per person per month up to £20 no matter how big the family. In consequence, children were married off as soon as possible to form a new unit.

The threat hanging over them was that, if they appeared to have bettered their standard of living, the children were taken away and the parents were sent to salt mines. So, out of fear, they all did what they were told.

We should keep in mind that Mikhail Gorbachev had been elected to power in 1985, and that the Soviet Union was struggling at this point. Gorbachev was starting to loosen the hardliner attitudes of previous administrations. Protests were held in various cities and 1987 would have been a rather turbulent time in Russia. An interesting time to visit. Although I’m not sure that parents would have been sent to the salt mines (or Siberia) in 1987.

One day we saw a long queue outside a shop; they were queueing for tights! We went into the shop to see – horrible things; we wouldn’t have used them for gardening, at the equivalent of 50p. I was warned before we went to take a supply of tights to use as tips because they weren’t allowed to accept money.

At Ida’s suggestion, we went to a food shop to watch, so we will pretend we are going to buy butter, bacon, cheese and cabbage. Just take a packet of butter from the counter and hand it to the girl at the end. She takes the butter and gives you a ticket which you take to the cash desk and pay. Then you take the receipt back to the girl at the counter and she hands you the butter.

You then go to the bacon counter and then, guess what, just the same procedure. This is the same for your cheese and cabbage.

Your shopping is now complete, when you get to the door your bag is checked. All told, this has taken one and a quarter hours for just four items.

The interesting thing here is that Margaret has a fair bit of detail for something as mundane as grocery shopping. And yet, for her “missions” the detail is sadly, lacking.

This procedure is the same for rich and poor alike, so heaven knows how long a full week’s shop would take.

We went to a clothing shop and, talk about “them or us”; on one side of the shop it was full of drab stockinette dresses and brown tweed coats and, on the other side, beautiful fur coats, hats and Levis jeans at £100 a pair.

There are wealthy people around but beware of them because they are “high-ups” in the Communist Party.

I rather doubt that the wealthy higher-ups had to line up for butter and tights. They either had staff to do that, or they shopped at the stores which catered to Westerners and the elite. Although, by 1987, many of these specialist stores were allowing regular Russians to shop there as well.

The thing I noticed was the totally blank faces of the people; no emotion whatsoever and a smile was a twitch of the lips. Clean; no litter; safe to be on the streets at night.

However, we enjoyed our holiday. During three days in Moscow we did all the touristy things, even to seeing the fabulous Metro.

It’s so clean including crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling in the booking hall. But then everything in Russia was clean and tidy. The streets of Moscow were washed overnight; mind you, nobody would dare to drop so much as a sweet paper.

And yet, aside from a brief mention of Ida, we hear nothing further about her. Which seems odd. Again, given that this all took place in 1987, during the thawing of Soviet control instituted by Gorbachev, some of these comments “totally blank faces of the people” seems out of place.

We then travelled by train, in the most antiquated carriages you could imagine, to Leningrad. It’s a beautiful city and very much restored after the siege of Leningrad during the war, which I am sure you have heard of. The domes of the churches (now museums) were all freshly gilded and, incredibly, the crosses were also gilded and stood above the domes although religion was absolutely forbidden – jail for disobedience but, remember, the Christians still met in secret – wonderful people longing for the day they could once again use their churches.

Religion wasn’t absolutely forbidden, although some Christian groups were indeed banned. But the Russian Orthodox Church survived, albeit weakened. There were still some functioning churches, monasteries and clergy, even in 1987 Russia.

I must tell you one incident when we were a group listening to a guide when I noticed two men watching us. I followed their eyes and they were focused on a man in our group with his mother. Then, horror of horrors, I noticed how he was standing in the typical stance of a Roman Catholic Priest. When we got back to the hotel I warned him that he was giving himself away.

The end of our holiday came and I must tell you of the palaver at the airport. Your money and jewellery were checked – there were receipts for everything bought – this was not for your protection but to make sure you took nothing out that wasn’t accounted for.

Then onto the plane and, surprise, surprise, it was on time to the minute.

I have no idea what the “typical stance” of a Roman Catholic priest would look like. And Margaret does not clear up the confusion.

I have no doubt that Margaret and her daughter traveled to the Soviet Union in 1987. She may even have known a woman named Ida who was, perhaps, even a British national. There are some additions to her story that don’t always ring true, or accurate.

Conclusion

While Margaret’s 1987 trip to Russia sounds more or less real, her 1942 and 1952 trips beggar belief. The facts just don’t line up. For example, flying into German-allied Helsinki and German-occupied Minsk and then driving 700 km through German-occupied territory in 1942. Perhaps the entire 1942 and 1952 Russian exploits were to explain how she knew this woman named Ida in 1987? I don’t know, and at this point, I don’t really have any more interest in Margaret’s exploits.

I am not sure what was going on for this woman, but her stories were most likely a figment of her imagination (at best) or a symptom of some mental health condition (at worst). The memoirs/letters published in 2014 do not align with her Sister Evangeline story from 2005. None of the accounts really align with the genealogical information.

This may be why no reputable national newspapers picked up Margaret’s story after it was published in the Eastbourne Herald. Anyone reading the accounts can identify the holes, inconsistencies and inaccuracies. Which is sad, because Margaret’s life, her real life, as a nurse during wartime, could have made for interesting reading.

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