Nurse in front of brick building - generated with Open AI

The Daring Midwife Spy: Margaret Spencer’s Fantastical WWII Exploits

Margaret Spencer is about to tell us about her wartime exploits in this, the first of her “memoir” letters published in the Eastbourne Herald on 21 July, 2014. We are not sure when these letters were written. If they were written in the last few years of her life, then Margaret would have been in her late 80s or early 90s, a good seven decades removed from the events that she wrote about.

My own mother is a similar age, and still tells me stories about her life in Berlin during the war. Her memories are sharp and clear, even after 70 years. Admittedly, Margaret’s memories may not have been so sharp and clear. Perhaps she was suffering from age-related memory decline, or even a touch of dementia.

We read about Sister Evangeline and Pierre de Coursey in a previous post, an account written by Margaret in 2005. And yet, in these new memoirs/letters, from 2014, there is no mention of any of these adventures. No Sister Evangeline. No Fr. Pierre. That is odd and I am not sure what to make of it. Generally, one would expect at least a mention of such an important aspect of Margaret’s espionage missions. But nowhere in these new memoirs, do we get even a whiff of her religious alter-ego.

On the other hand, the 2014 memoirs/letters are slightly more rooted in terms of geography and timeline. My sense is that Margaret has woven her story around a more factual skeleton of places, dates and people. The story is still fantastical in the extreme, and we will dissect it shortly.

The original Eastbourne Herald article has no headlines or section breaks, so I have added some to guide the reader. Let’s begin. The indented portions are direct quotes from the newspaper article. I should also note that the newspaper headlines vacillate between stating that Margaret served with SIS and then with SOE. In the text of Margaret’s letters, she never actually pins that down clearly, other than in the Sister Evangeline story.

The Fearful Clerical Fiancé

Double life of wartime secret agent Mrs Margaret Spencer
Margaret Spencer, who secretly served in the SOE in the Second World War

It was all a long time ago so, to make sense, I will start at the beginning.

“In 1940 I was engaged to be married to a local curate and we were to be married on September 29.

To cut a sad episode short, he became a nervous wreck with the continual hit and run bombing of that summer and decided to run away to America.

“He wanted me to go with him. Well, I told him I was a sailor’s daughter and we did not run away so that was that.”

A man flees in terror while Margaret, a 20 year old woman stays, despite the bombing. We already see that Margaret, a sailor’s daughter, is made of sterner stuff than an Anglican curate. But is it true?

The fact that Margaret and the unnamed curate had a date for their wedding would suggest that they were formally engaged. I searched through historical copies of the Eastbourne Herald newspaper from 1939 and 1940 (via the BritishNewspaperArchives). I could find no notice of engagement for Margaret Payne (or Margaret Ethel Payne), although there were many notices of engagement for other couples. I even found a Curate Brett who got married in January 1940, but he did not marry Margaret.

I did discover that several curates (and even a vicar) left Eastbourne during 1940:

  • Feb 1940 – Vicar Salisbury (to join the RAF Volunteer Reserve as a Chaplain);
  • Aug 1940 – Curate Longbotham (to become curate at St. Paul’s Church in Durban, South Africa);
  • Aug 1940 – Curate Balaam (to take up duties at Peckham Rye – Southwark, London);
  • Sep 1940 – Curate Bell (to take up a position at a rural parish not far from Eastbourne).
  • Dec 1940 – Curate Shirehampton (to join the RAF as a Chaplain in Egypt);

While the above named curates served at various Anglican churches in Eastbourne, only one cleric was attached to Christ Church, Margaret’s parish in Eastbourne. The Reverend R.A. Longbotham, former curate at Christ Church is, I suppose, the most likely candidate, although he “ran away” to South Africa, not America. The Eastbourne Herald had a chat with Longbotham prior to his departure, and we learn a few interesting tidbits about him.

Longbotham arrived at Christ Church in October 1937, and was a very enthusiastic assistant pastor, who regularly cycled around the parish visiting parishioners. Christ Church was his first curacy, after studying at King’s College (London) and Salisbury Theological College. Longbotham told the Herald reporter that, “everywhere he had been received very cordially and the only unfortunate incident occurred when he visited a night worker who came to the door to greet him in his pyjamas”. Vicar Marcon spoke very highly of Longbotham and there is not a whiff of anything untoward about his departure. He was heading to South Africa under the auspices of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.

Did Margaret have a crush on the Reverend Longbotham? She would have been 17 years old when he first arrived in Eastbourne, and it is entirely possible that she fell hard for the young, handsome curate six years her senior. Did her imagination generate a mutual reciprocity to her affections? Did she believe that Longbotham was in love with her? If there is one thing we have learned about Margaret, it is that she has a very vivid imagination.

Some genealogical digging yielded a bit more information about our curate. Richard Ashley Longbotham was born 6 June, 1914 in Worksop, Nottinghamshire. I found a passenger list from New York to Southampton from 15 July, 1946. Our reverend was returning to England from South Africa and planned to stay at 119 Grange Road, Ealing. One might suspect that this would support Margaret’s assertion that the man had fled the bombing in 1940 and, now that the war was over, he was returning to England to pick up the threads of peacetime life. Nope. It appears that he resided in South Africa (on a Rhodesian passport) and only returned to England for occasional visits. He married Nina Elizabeth Williams (originally from Haverfordwest, South Wales) in Africa, sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s. The couple had one son, Simon Hugh, born in Africa in 1954.

The Rev. R.A. Longbotham (1957) - From Portsmouth Evening News
The Rev. R.A. Longbotham (1957) – From Portsmouth Evening News

By 1957, Longbotham had returned to England and taken up a position as vicar in Aldingbourne, in the Chichester Diocese. A newspaper article covering his ordination gave a bit of his history and noted that after Durban, Longbotham went to Natal and then Southern Rhodesia. While there, he was appointed Chaplain of the Central African Command Forces and went to Malaya as Battalion Chaplain to the Rhodesian African Rifles. While in Malaya, “he served with them in many dangerous missions against the Communists”. The only hiccup in the 1957 newspaper article is that it notes he went to Durban “towards the end of the war”. Hmmmm… not quite… 1940 is not really the end of the war. Tragically, Longbotham’s young son, Simon, died in 1963 at the age of 9. But I digress… Let’s get back to Margaret…

I am fairly confident that Rev. Longbotham was the poor curate caught in the crosshairs of Margaret’s youthful affection. It is easy to see how his departure for South Africa could be interpreted by her as cowardice. Far better for the curate to be a coward than for him not to return Margaret’s affections. Or perhaps that was his real cowardly action… running from Margaret’s professions of devotion? I find it very unlikely that they were ever engaged to be married. It should also be mentioned that the last half of 1940 falls within the window of time during which The Adventures of Margaret (or Sr. Evangeline) & Pierre could have taken place.

As for the newspaper article’s subtitle which mentions “SOE”, I am taking that to be journalistic error, although… perhaps not. Margaret actually doesn’t say what organization she joined, at least not in these 2014 memoirs.

Recruited into Secrecy

“One morning before Christmas, a member of my family asked me to go for a ride with him.

“A black car and driver arrived and we drove for about an hour to a large house in extensive grounds.

“Although I made that journey many times, to this day I have no idea where it was.

“I was introduced by number to three men. I spent the day questioning and being questioned “Little did I think that it would be 55 years before it was rescinded. I was given my warrant and a Colt 45.and in the end I was asked to swear my allegiance to the King and sign the Official Secrets Act.

“I must point out guns held no terror for me.

“I had been handling them from an early age.

“Dad was a gunnery instructor in the Navy and had won the Bisley Challenge Cup for three years on the trot and I had spent many happy hours on target practice both win [sic] a rifle and revolver.

If (and it is a big IF) Margaret wrote this particular memoir in a semi-chronological framework, then we can presume this Christmas visit was most likely Christmas 1940. It’s rather coy of Margaret not to mention the family member’s name, although we do know from the pronoun, that it was a man. We learned in the Evangeline document that Margaret’s brother had supposedly joined SIS and recruited her into the organization. Given that she only had one brother, the previous post also examined the likelihood of Nigel being an MI6 agent, and landed on the side of… extremely unlikely. Perhaps, after Margaret had written the Evangeline document, she received some skeptical feedback about her brother’s involvement. Perhaps Nigel’s wife read Margaret’s account and muttered “poppy-cock”. So, in this new memoir… Margaret just left it as… a “member of my family”. Could have been her father (conveniently deceased), or an uncle or a cousin…

It’s rather odd that Margaret, who, according to the Sister Evangeline adventures, could navigate a plane (at night) and get her bearings from landmarks (in the dark), was unable to figure out where this large house was located. Perhaps the driver took a different route every time, so that Margaret would have no idea how to get there.

Margaret spent the day at this mysterious property being questioned by three men. At no point, however, does she actually state that she joined SIS. She just received her “warrant” and gun and… off she went. Which begs the question… did she actually join SIS? Based on her missions, this seems unlikely, given that most of her “work” was within the UK, the purview of MI5, not MI6. The Evangeline story made me think she had actually joined the Special Operations Executive, but she was quite clear, in that document, that she had joined SIS. So let’s leave her in SIS for now.

Margaret makes much of her experience with guns. Perhaps, to her, that was the least believable part of her story, that she, a woman, would know how to handle and shoot guns. I do have to admit that the least believable parts of her story are actually her ability to fly a plane and her knowledge of languages, amongst others. Interestingly, in this first memoir/letter, Margaret flies no planes and has no need of a foreign language. Perhaps she learned something from feedback on her Evangeline story?

Cleaning up Fifth Columnists

“My main job in those early days was tracking down Fifth Communists [sic – likely Fifth Columnists – perhaps a journalistic typo] who were ready to assist the Germans should they invade.

“There was a large concentration of them on the south coast so back I was sent to Eastbourne, and while carrying on nursing I was ever observant and with two other agents we pretty well cleaned up the town.

“We all hated traitors.

“A German spy was serving his country as we were serving ours but a traitor, I could shoot without a second thought.

“I must explain everybody in the “service” had to be seen to be working in a reserved occupation as part of our cover, that’s when we learnt to do without sleep, just cat naps at any opportunity.

Well this would be news. I have yet to come across any sources that document a large concentration of Fifth Columnists along the East Sussex coast . There was a deep fear of Fifth Columnists after the Germans blitzed through the Low Countries in the spring of 1940. MI5 identified thousands of questionable individuals due to their political or ethnic/national affiliations – e.g. Fascists, Germans, Italians, other aliens, etc. These were arrested by the police and summarily interned, without a trial, often for years. Many of these individuals were also released after a short internment to continue their lives. The more serious threat, from fascist political groups, was kept under close watch by MI5 but I doubt that any MI6 agents were involved, and Margaret claimed to belong to MI6 (at least in her Evangeline document).

Based on Margaret’s timeline, she was recruited into SIS around Christmas 1940, so we can presume she was back in Eastbourne, in early 1941. Under Defence Regulation 18B, the vast majority of suspicious individuals (Germans, Austrians, Fascists and Italians) had been interned by June 1940 (after Italy entered the war). So I’m not sure there would have been a “large concentration” left on the south coast for Margaret and her colleagues to “clean up”.

Margaret, at this point, has gone from Draper’s Assistant (1939 Nat Reg) to a nurse (1941). We know from the first post that she was a Probationer Nurse when she met her husband in 1942/43. We can presume that, in early 1941, she would have been a Probationer Nurse as well, under the watchful eye of Matron and the Staff Nurses. She would have us believe that, as a very junior nurse, she had the freedom to go out searching for suspicious Fifth Columnists. She would also have us believe that she, along with two (unnamed) agents, “pretty well cleaned up the town”. What does that actually mean? How did they “clean up the town”?

Given that MI6 was responsible for intelligence work abroad, and MI5 was responsible for intelligence work within the UK (including counter-espionage)… one would think MI5 would be tracking down Fifth Columnists? In fact, everywhere else in the UK, it was indeed MI5 who identified individuals perceived as a threat to the war effort, but that was all they did. After identifying suspicious individuals, MI5 then contacted Special Branch who would move in and arrest the suspects. MI5 had no powers to actually arrest people, not even spies who landed by parachute; that was solely the role of the police.

If we continue reading Margaret’s narrative, she states that “we all hated traitors”. I presume the “we” here is her and the other two agents in Eastbourne. Margaret could have respect for a German spy, but “a traitor, I could shoot without a second thought”. This would seem to suggest that Margaret (and her two fellow agents) cleaned up the town of traitorous Fifth Columnists by… shooting them? Without a second thought? Judge, jury and executioner; all in one fell swoop? This sort of illegal activity (summary execution/assassination of people without a trial), within the borders of the United Kingdom, would, of course, be a bit of a bombshell. And, in fact, there was a bomb…

Saved by the Bomb

“One one occasion I was careless and it nearly cost me my life but I was saved by a bomb.

“It was the week before Christmas 1942, I was loaded with presents during some last minute shopping.

“As I was outside Marks and Spencer, I saw coming towards me a man I had been trailing for most of the night.

“As he approached his hand went into his coat, so I did the only thing I could and threw myself on the ground between other shoppers’ feet and at that precise moment Marks took a direct hit and although I was badly blasted and in hospital for weeks, the people around me including my ‘quarry’ were killed.

“The funny thing was somebody pinched my gun and holster but they did me a good turn because when I was back on duty I was given a very neat little American pistol which was much easier to hide.

“This I kept until I retired from active service in 1977.

Marks and Spencer - bomb damage from 18 December, 1942 (From SussexWorld news site)
Marks and Spencer in Eastbourne – bomb damage from 18 December, 1942
(From SussexWorld news site)

Marks and Spencer in Eastbourne was indeed bombed on 18 December, 1942. The store was crowded with Christmas shoppers and the direct hit on the store injured and killed scores, with only one person escaping unscathed. Perhaps Margaret was injured by the bomb blast. Certainly, anyone walking outside the shop would have been lucky to escape uninjured, or alive. According to Margaret, her “quarry” and all the other shoppers outside the store were killed.

It seems a bit odd, again, for Margaret to be trailing someone within the UK if she was a member of SIS (MI6) or even SOE. It was not within their wheelhouse to handle domestic intelligence and counter-espionage. It also seems a bit odd for Margaret to be trailing someone while simultaneously shopping for Christmas presents. And, if she was trailing him, why was he walking towards her? Unless, of course, he realized that she was trailing him and was going to shoot her there in the middle of the sidewalk, in front of Marks & Spencer, surrounded by Christmas shoppers. I suppose stranger things have happened.

I get the sense from Margaret that she imagined herself as a sleuth (or a spook or a spy). Perhaps she was a lonely young woman who wanted to add some meaning to her life. She may have seen “suspicious” people around Eastbourne and kept them under observation. She wouldn’t have been the only person who saw spies where none existed, or who saw strange markings on telegraph poles and imagined the worst. In the early years of the war, MI5 was inundated by hundreds of letters from patriotic Britons who breathlessly communicated their suspicions that someone, or something, was aiding the enemy. But this was 1942, and it’s a bit hard to imagine who Margaret could have been trailing. Was she trailing him because he spoke with an accent? Because he had new shoes while everyone else had worn out ones? Because he was flush with cash? We have no idea because she gives us no information.

Having escaped with her life, Margaret was in hospital for “weeks”. We can assume this means more than 1 week and less than 8 (at which point, we are talking “months). This would have taken her into early 1943, around the time that she would have met her future husband, Dr. D.L. Scott. And, right on cue, Margaret brings him up.

Marriage and Midwifery in Croydon

“The next place I was sent to was Croydon.

“One of our men had been killed there and as a cover I trained as a midwife at Mayday Hospital so was able to cycle all over the district.

“While there I married a doctor in the air force at St Mildred’s, Addiscombe. I had met him in Eastbourne before he was called up. I was then sent on a crash course on tropical medicine.

If we believe Margaret, then an SIS agent had been “killed” at Croydon. If it was a natural death, Margaret would have said “one of our men died there”. But no, someone had “killed” an SIS agent (or SOE or MI5??) in 1943. Oddness built upon oddness. Who was running around the outskirts of southwest London killing MI6 agents? Unless this is related to whomever had infiltrated MI6 in the Evangeline story and it was an inside job. Seems unlikely in the extreme.

Croydon Mayday Hospital (formerly Croydon Union Infirmary) - from Museum of Croydon site
Croydon Mayday Hospital (formerly Croydon Union Infirmary) – from Museum of Croydon site

It may be true that Margaret was sent off to Mayday Hospital. She admits that she met her future husband in Eastbourne before he was called up. This fits the timeline we had identified from genealogical records and other documents in the first post. This little tidbit seems to suggest that Margaret, perhaps having moved beyond Probationer Nurse, was now a State Enrolled Nurse, or had transitioned into midwifery. I’m not sure why her ability to cycle all over the district as a midwife would have been considered a useful talent for an SIS agent.

We know that Margaret married Dr. D.L. Scott on 23 September, 1943, a good solid pin in her timeline. It now makes a bit more sense for her to have married him at St. Mildred’s in Addiscombe, given that she had transferred to Mayday Hospital. Whether she married first, and then moved to the nearby hospital, or vice versa, is not clear.

I am completely confused by her statement that “I was then sent on a crash course on tropical medicine”. Was she going to be nursing pregnant women from tropical climes? She was, by her own admission, training as a midwife. This tropical medicine piece appears with no context, and is never mentioned again. We do know that her husband would be sent to the Far East in early 1945, to the jungles of Singapore and Malaya, but that was still 18 months in the future.

Matron at an Isolation Hospital

“Then came the job which had been planned for me all along.

“My husband was stationed on a bomber station and “conveniently” a nearby isolation hospital needed a matron and surprise, surprise I got the job.

“This consisted of three large prefab huts, each containing two wards and the usual service area.

“One for TB, one for diptheria, which in those days was prevalent and one for scarlet fever.

“Believe me, that kept me busy.

“But in the grounds was an old large house unoccupied.

“It was to be a safe hospital for agents who one way or another had come to grief.

A job that had been planned for her all along? Matron of an isolation hospital? I am confused. I thought she was training as a midwife? Why would a midwife be appointed Matron of an isolation hospital for infectious diseases? I also thought that she was a Probationer Nurse in 1942, so I find it rather hard to imagine she would have been promoted to Matron the following year. I’m also not sure if the “conveniently” located isolation hospital (in relation to the bomber station) is for intelligence purposes… or for matrimonial purposes.

Croydon Borough Hospital for Infectious Diseases - Museum of Croydon site
Croydon Borough Hospital for Infectious Diseases – Museum of Croydon site

Croydon did have an isolation hospital, the Croydon Borough Hospital for Infectious Diseases. It had been built in 1893/4 and was initially composed of wards in temporary huts. By 1896, however, it had 17 solid buildings including several pavilions with distinct wards. In 1930, a nurse’s home and an operating theatre were added to the site. I think we can safely say that by 1943, it was a full blown hospital with permanent buildings. The hospital did indeed care for patients who had tuberculosis, scarlet fever, enteric fever and diphtheria. It was located on Waddon Marsh Way (a street that has now disappeared). It would have been located just north of the current intersection between Purley Way and Drury Crescent in Croydon.

According to Margaret, the grounds of this isolation hospital had an old, large house, which became a “safe hospital” for agents who had come to grief. I’m not sure why injured agents would need a “safe” hospital in the United Kingdom. Safe from what? From Fifth Columnists? German agents? Traitorous SIS assassins? Perhaps there really was an old house on the grounds, one of the original buildings from the late 1800s, but Margaret’s imagination seems to have run away with her. Maybe patients were cared for in the old house, but perhaps it was Margaret who imagined that they were agents on the mend?

Leading Soprano at Ely Cathedral Choir (Cambridgeshire)

“This time was also a satisfying one.

“My old singing master had heard that Ely Cathedral was wanting female choristers so he wrote to them. The upshot being I was asked to go for a voice test etc.

“For the next 18 months I was leading soprano in the Cathedral Choir and the highlight was to sing the solo, I Know that my Redeemer Liveth, on Easter Sunday.

I am confused. Again. Margaret was working at the isolation hospital in Croydon. Now, all of a sudden, we are in Ely, Cambridgeshire. Although, this was the place that Margaret kept referring to in the Evangeline document. Soooo, perhaps she moved to Ely? Seems odd. And the next few paragraphs don’t help clear up the situation.

The Rabid Agent outside Berlin

“During this time I had many trips to the continent to bring agents home and there was one etched into my memory.

“It was Christmas Eve and that morning it had been confirmed I was expecting a baby. Neither the hospital or house were busy so I was looking forward to going home early and going to the party to be held in the RAF Mess that night.

“Well, I had a phone call to say wear dark, warm clothing and I would be picked up in a car.

“It transpired there was an agent with rabies just outside Berlin who had to be picked up before he became delirious and gave away too many secrets. I went into a small reconnaissance plane with just the pilot.

“We flew very high to miss the German searchlights then came in very low to the field where two rows of torches miraculously came on.

“We landed, the patient was loaded on and we were airborne again in ten minutes.

“It was just as well as the poor chap was already becoming noisy.

“I looked at my watch and it was just midnight so I said a little prayer to the Babe of Bethlehem to keep us safe.

“So that is why the Midnight Service on Christmas Eve is very special to me.

“We got home safely but alas, the poor man died the next day.

“During all these activities my husband was in complete ignorance.

“He just thought I was busy at the hospital. He knew nothing about the house. Secrecy meant just that, not even your nearest and dearest knew about your double life.”

Margaret has jumped forward in time again. She became pregnant in the fall of 1944 (likely October). So the timeline for her Berlin adventure would be Christmas 1944. Given that she wanted to go the RAF Mess, we can presume that her husband would be accompanying her, given that he was an RAF officer. Except, Margaret was called away to go and pick up a rabid agent “just outside” Berlin. And her husband was completely clueless about her nocturnal activities? He didn’t wonder why she wasn’t at the RAF Mess on Christmas Eve? Didn’t wonder why she wasn’t at the Midnight Service? Oh right, she was a nurse and could conveniently state that she had been called in to work.

As for her location, I thought she had moved to Ely for 18 months? But no, she now references the hospital and the “house”. She also ends with the statement that her husband “knew nothing about the house”. This was the “safe hospital” house for sick agents… which was on the grounds of the isolation hospital in Croydon.

Just as a reminder… according to the Evangeline document: Margaret moved from Eastbourne (1939 Nat Reg) to Ely (1940/41) to Eastbourne (1942/43) and back to Ely (1944). Although, Margaret makes absolutely no reference to the Evangeline adventures in these 2014 articles, and the timeline is completely different.

Interestingly, in this first memoir/letter, Margaret makes no reference to her D-Day adventures in France from June 1944. Nor of the fact that she was shot in the spine during those same adventures. It is as if the Sister Evangeline document does not exist.

Margaret’s wartime adventures continue in her second memoir/letter published in the Eastbourne Herald on 28 July, 2014 . The subheading says it all: We continue our trip down Memory Lane this week with the diaries of Margaret Spencer, the Secret Intelligence Service spy, who lived in Eastbourne and saved countless lives during the Second World War. The first part of the second letter continues Margaret’s wartime adventures, while the second part moves into the Cold War period. I have included the wartime section here, as it flows better.

A Crack Shot

We have one final exploit of the intrepid nurse Margaret, one that demonstrates her coolness under fire, while men cower on the floor.

One evening in April I was writing the report in the hospital when the red light flashed so I put on my cloak and went over to the house.

At the house all seemed quiet downstairs, but on going upstairs I saw one of the orderlies on the floor pointing to a door so I cautiously went in to find a man holding down a patient and questioning him.

He spun around and pointed his gun at me and told me to walk over and stand with my back to the wall and that was his big mistake because while my back was turned to him I got my gun out of my cloak and as I turned I shot his gun out of his hand. That does not injure them but it is very painful so I was able to put the cuffs on him, then blew the whistle for another orderly and we tied him face down on a bed.

Then the fun began. Our cover had been blown so I rang headquarters and a team arrived and by the morning it was once more a dusty old house with no trace of occupation and for the next week I was matron of the Fever Hospital.

After that I was sent home to Eastbourne for a rest, the first leave I had had since 1940 and the war was almost over.

We have no sense of the timeline for this. Was it April 1944? Or 1945? We aren’t sure. But it is definitely set at the infectious diseases hospital in Croydon, the one where an old house on the ground was a “safe” hospital for wounded agents. Margaret is the heroine, again, in this little vignette. While an orderly cowers on the floor outside the ward (not sure why he hadn’t run away), Margaret strides into the ward to confront a mysterious man who was questioning one of the sick agents. Why walk blind into the ward? Why not find out from the orderly what was going on? Why not walk into the ward with gun already in hand? All not as dramatic as shooting the gun out of the mysterious man’s hand. I’m not sure about the wisdom of shooting a gun in a hospital with oxygen tanks and patients lying around. Why tie the mysterious man face down on the bed? Why not face up? I am left confused by the entire vignette. It makes no sense.

Shepherding the Princesses

We now jump towards the end of the war and VE Day in London. I am still not clear if Margaret was a member of the SOE, MI6, MI5 or some other organization. She seems to have done a bit of everything, even to serving as secret escort to the Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret on VE Day.

On May 8, 1945, I was sent to London to mix with the crowds outside Buckingham Palace. About 8pm I received a message to go to the side gate where the two princesses were coming out to join the crowds and I was to shadow them. I wonder if they realised they had a very pregnant lady escorting them wherever they went.

Having shadowed the princesses, I was met by an equerry and taken into the palace where I was presented to the King who thanked me for looking after his daughters.

The princesses did indeed go out into the crowds, incognito, accompanied by a gaggle of various employees, equerries, guards and attendants. Was Margaret actually there, in London, on VE Day? At 6 months pregnant? I find it very difficult to believe that she, as a supposed SIS (MI6) agent would have been sent to keep an eye on the princesses in the roiling, jubilant crowds. Again, such a role did not fall within the purview of MI6. In addition, Margaret herself said in an earlier document that her secret role garnered her no medals and no thanks… except, in this case, from the King?

The Husband Returns

Finally, we reach the end of Margaret’s wartime adventures, but not the end of her service with SIS (or was it MI5? or SOE?).

That was the end of my wartime exploits but I was still in the service. My daughter was born in July 1945. I then worked at St Mary’s Hospital, Eastbourne. In the mean time the department informed me that my husband was living with a native woman from Chittagong, Bangladesh, and intended bringing her home with him.

He came home in 1946 and in 1950 he asked me for a divorce which I gave him, for which heinous crime I was thrown out of the Mothers’ Union.

According to the divorce papers, Margaret had no advance warning that her husband was having an affair while overseas. He returned home in 1946, and after a happy reunion, she became suspicious of him, at which point he admitted the affair. The divorce seems to have been a mutual request on both their parts.

The final line is a bit strange and we see a flash of something else in Margaret, a cynical anger directed at the Mother’s Union. This particular line also makes me wonder if these memoirs/letters from Margaret were actually transcripts taken while she was telling her story. Perhaps her daughter sat down with her mother and said “Mum, tell me again about your wartime adventures.”. Perhaps these memories were recorded on cassette and then transcribed and written down in memoir/letter format. Or maybe Margaret really did write them out herself.

Comparing the Timelines

I got a bit lost in all of the different dates and locations while reading Margaret’s various writings, so have created a table to bring them all together. The Genealogical Timeline is based on facts and documents uncovered while researching Margaret’s life. The dates from the Sister Evangeline document are a bit harder to pin down, particularly her adventures with Pierre. The interesting thing there is that during 1940/41, Margaret was apparently living in Ely, Cambridgeshire, which does not match the first memoir/letter published in the Eastbourne Herald. The first memoir/letter actually matches the genealogical timeline fairly well, and seems more rooted in geography than the Sr. Evangeline document.

DatesGenealogical TimelineSr. Evangeline DocumentEastbourne Herald – Memoir #1 and first part of Memoir #2
1939Sep 1939 – living in Eastbourne – working as Draper’s Asst and as a volunteer with the British Red Cross
1940Aug 1940 – Giving First Aid classes to Christ Church MembersSept 1940 – broken engagement with cowardly curate
Dec 1940 – Recruited by male family member into “SIS” while in Eastbourne
1940/41Late 1940 or Early 1941 – Recruited by brother into SIS and working with Pierre in France while living in Ely, Cambridgeshire
1941Early 1941 – rounding up Fifth Columnists in Eastbourne while working as a nurse
1942Dec 1942 – working as a nurse in Eastbourne & injured by Marks and Spencer bombing
1942/43Meets her future husband while working as a nurse in EastbourneLiving in Eastbourne
1943Sep 1943 – Married husband near CroydonSep 1943 – Married husband near Croydon & working at Mayday Hospital & Isolation Hospital in Croydon
1943/44Living in Ely againMoves to Ely for 18 months
1944Oct 1944 becomes pregnant presumably while living with husband in CroydonJun 1944 – Present at D-Day invasion and shot in spineDec 1944 – pregnant mission to pick up rabid agent outside Berlin while living in Croydon
1945July 1945 – gives birth to daughterApril 1945? – Croydon hospital
May 1945 – London
Timeline of Margaret Spencer’s wartime adventures from genealogical records, and two of her own writings.

Conclusion

I get the sense that Margaret had what can charitably be called an “overactive” imagination. This particular article seems to be more rooted in factual locations and timelines, if we can strip away the imaginative bits. And the bit about Ely.

Essentially, we can say that Margaret was trained as a nurse in Eastbourne and then moved to Croydon in 1943 to serve as a midwife.

Did Margaret actually believe the stories she wrote down? The fact that there is zero cross-over between this account and the Evangeline document is perplexing. Did she forget that she had written the Sister Evangeline document? Was the Sister Evangeline document written as a fictional story? Was she delusional? Did she suffer from some mental illness? Hard to say.

I did find one reference to Margaret in a 3 August, 1940, snippet from the Eastbourne Herald.

“It may be of general interest, and to the quieting of fears, to know that we have two fire squads and a first aid party amongst the members of the congregation,” writes the Rev. J.N. Marcon in the Christ Church magazine. “The former have been instructed by the divisional warden and appliances installed in the tower porch and near the pulpit. The latter have been meeting every Friday under the guidance of Miss Margaret Payne; many of them are already well qualified to deal with an emergency.”

Margaret was a busy, community-minded young woman. Her life would have made for interesting reading without the espionage additions. But in the next installment from the Eastbourne Herald, Margaret’s secret work takes her to Cold War Russia.

References

Story of a 1930s Nurse – General nurse training in the early Thirties (friendsinlowplaces.co.uk)

Nursing Times – A history of nursing in Britain: the 1940s | Nursing Times

Nurse Story – The Matron’s Assistant (1938-1975) – WISEArchive

Story of a Nurse during WW2 – BBC – WW2 People’s War – Recollections of a Nurse during WW2

Fiction Author – Nursing in the Second World War | Merryn Allingham

Lost Hospitals – Waddon Hospital (Croydon Borough Hospital for Infectious Diseases)

History of Croydon Borough Hospital for Infection Diseases – Museum of Croydon site

Header Image – AI generated with https://openart.ai/

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