S8 Ep18: Spy Artist Prisoner with Lady Jane Reid

[00:00:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Due to the themes of this podcast, listener discretion is advised. Lock your doors, close the blinds, change your passwords. This is Secrets and Spies.

[00:00:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Secrets and Spies is a podcast that dives into the world of espionage, terrorism, geopolitics and intrigue.

[00:00:34] [SPEAKER_00]: This podcast is produced and hosted by Chris Carr.

[00:00:37] [SPEAKER_01]: On today's podcast I'm joined by Lady Jane Reid and we are discussing a book that she was the translator of called Spy Artist Prisoner, which is all about the Romanian artist George Tommasiu who became a spy during World War II. I hope you find this episode interesting.

[00:01:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Jane, welcome to the podcast.

[00:01:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you very much. I'm very pleased to be with you.

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_01]: So Jane, before we get started, please can you just tell us a little bit about yourself?

[00:01:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'm extremely ancient. I've spent a lot of my career as well, my prime egyptian wife in various places. But I usually found something interesting to do. And then in interims in London, I taught in comprehensive schools. And I worked for administrative charity and then another charity. And now I'm retired. And I'm nearly 89.

[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Nearly 89? Oh wow. Wow.

[00:01:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Excellent. Excellent. Well, I suppose one quick question. What is it like being a diplomat? Why? What kind of experiences do you end up having in that kind of situation?

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_02]: It's very varied.

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Very, very varied. And you can involve yourself in the country or not. You can, I couldn't sum it up. You have to be ready to adapt to new people. If you don't develop a good way of liking people and being interested, you're lost I think.

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_02]: But I regretted sometimes not having had a career. But then I thought, well actually I've done so many interesting things. It doesn't really, I'm compensated.

[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Today we're going to talk about George Tamar's you and his biography that you translated called spy artist prisoner. So can you just talk to us a little bit about George's early life before he became a spy?

[00:02:43] [SPEAKER_02]: He was born in 1915. So at the outbreak of war he was about 25. And his father was, he was a good family from Northern Romania. And his father was a lawyer but also a member of parliament for a thoroughly sort of good party.

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And George, his interest was always in being an artist. He traveled in the years before the war. He managed to get first to Vienna and then briefly to Paris and around just in early 1939.

[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_02]: He hasn't, he hadn't traveled a great deal but he had studied art and was doing well. His mother's cousin was the great composer and violinist George Inescu.

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And he was Inescu's godson as well. So there were plenty of good connections.

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes. What kind of art did he specialise in? Was this a portraitural landscape for a bit of both?

[00:03:40] [SPEAKER_02]: It was very much of his own. He was interested in light and he painted a lot in oils and in gouache. I've got two pictures here in my room by him. Color, color and light interested him more than anything else. It was vaguely impressionist I think one could say.

[00:03:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_01]: George talks a little bit about the sort of in the book about the early days of World War Two and also his feelings of kind of confusion over the non-aggression pact sign between the Soviets and the Nazis.

[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Can you talk to us a bit about sort of those early years of the war for George and that kind of that, I suppose that ideological kind of environment at that time?

[00:04:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, sort of it appeared before the war.

[00:04:25] [SPEAKER_02]: There was a sort of on the one hand you have Europe within a mess. On the one hand looking sort of East, you had Russia and communism, which was sort of they talked about this of the sort of great hope for humanity and wonderful system and equality and chance for all and all the rest.

[00:04:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And on the other side, you had the fascists who all law and order and the good of all because everything was under control and so on.

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And you looked from one to the other and you could see that both in their way were awful and which you choose and Romania was kind of a pawn stuck between the two systems really.

[00:05:07] [SPEAKER_02]: So it and it was horrible thing to grow up with.

[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_02]: But he and then everybody's surprised these totally different systems, suddenly allied themselves on the the the Pax which was a shock to everybody.

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it was it was it was a thing to be mad.

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So he was quite conflicted because he sort of had socialist sort of leanings in his sort of early years, didn't he?

[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And this is Pat kind of creates a lot of kind of personal confusion for him, didn't it?

[00:05:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think it did for everybody because it because they did seem that the two systems were so totally opposed to each other, totally different.

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And then suddenly you find both awful but but totally different and suddenly you find that they had made an alliance.

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_02]: It was very, very confusing.

[00:05:52] [SPEAKER_02]: But I don't I think he mistrusted them both.

[00:05:56] [SPEAKER_02]: So he wasn't personally sort of hurt by or he didn't feel betrayed because he didn't he didn't trust either or support either.

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_02]: So it just made the world even more weird.

[00:06:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And that sort of sort of socialistic sort of support for Soviet Russia is quite interesting.

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, obviously we are looking I'm looking back on on the sort of history that we know about.

[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_01]: So Stalin and things like that.

[00:06:24] [SPEAKER_01]: But I suppose at that time how much of a kind of picture did people really have of Soviet Russia?

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Because when I'm looking back it to me sounds dreadful.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_01]: But for some people they could have had a rosy-eyed view of it.

[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Some people did yes, because it was they they managed to sort of proclaim themselves moral and equality for everybody and chances for everybody.

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And all this kind of thing.

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_02]: I think the socialist idea is in many ways a very good idea, but it was got hold of by the wrong people.

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's really part it was.

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And at that time it seemed as if you just stated like Romania was stuck between these two weird ideologies.

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway.

[00:07:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well no no very interesting stuff.

[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_01]: It's it's yeah.

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean there's still some people who have a rosy-eyed view of Soviet Russia today.

[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_01]: But there we go.

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_01]: George met a man named Alexander.

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_02]: It was no chance because he felt he felt that he had to.

[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, he was struck by in 19 early 1940s.

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_02]: He was the horror of the fall of France and the horror of the on all sides, total horror.

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And he felt he didn't want to do something about it.

[00:07:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And to begin with before the fall of France, because he spoke French as well as he spoke English.

[00:07:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Sorry Romanian and his natural affinity was with France.

[00:07:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And so he started off doing some sort of spy observation, watching no particularly true

[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_02]: movements and so on and passing it on to a couple of French people he knew.

[00:08:03] [SPEAKER_02]: But then of course, with the fall of France, everything became different.

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And then he discovered, in fact, this man, Ekoumi,

[00:08:11] [SPEAKER_02]: his who his main is boss, let's speak, head of this this firing was in fact working for the British.

[00:08:19] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's when he realized and he admired Britain at that time, partly because of

[00:08:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Churchill, of course, and Churchill's words of defiance.

[00:08:29] [SPEAKER_02]: So he was suddenly he found he was working for the British Secret Service, which rather

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_02]: sort of excited him.

[00:08:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Very glamorous thing to be doing.

[00:08:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, exactly.

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, yeah, British intelligence had a reputation that it's very well known by this point.

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_01]: It was even this is pre James Bond as well, but it sort of had this sort of almost

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_01]: mythological sort of status, didn't it?

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_02]: I think so.

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_02]: They say it was well pre James Bond.

[00:08:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:08:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And is there anything in the book that he sort of describes at that time?

[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Because I remember with regards to his studying German movements, there's some

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_01]: interesting descriptions about how his sort of art knowledge aided him in being

[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_01]: able to kind of track the different types of vehicles and people walking

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_02]: past because everybody it all apparently it all went through through book.

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And so from observing, I know I've never been a spy.

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know, but observing we show the badges on the vehicle and so on.

[00:09:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And this was throughout his career.

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, do you want to talk to us about the massacre in Ukraine?

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, he was it was only sort of at the moment itself, but he realized

[00:09:34] [SPEAKER_02]: what was happening and you get this sort of picture of the charming German

[00:09:37] [SPEAKER_02]: officer who comes and plays poker with them and they and brings a bottle of

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_02]: decent wine every time.

[00:09:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Good French wine.

[00:09:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And then they haven't he has no idea of what he's being invited to

[00:09:53] [SPEAKER_02]: until he actually sees it happen.

[00:09:57] [SPEAKER_02]: So and the contrast, I mean, the awful, awful contrast of the Bane charming,

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_02]: well mannered, affable German officer and what he's having to do and doing

[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_02]: without any apparent shame or anything like that.

[00:10:19] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's I think a most memorable piece of writing.

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Shortening indeed.

[00:10:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Indeed.

[00:10:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I've always found that sort of psychologically, that kind of contrast

[00:10:29] [SPEAKER_01]: where people could be sort of so nice, but at the same time involved

[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_01]: in something so brutal.

[00:10:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I've always been that so fascinating.

[00:10:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it is.

[00:10:37] [SPEAKER_02]: It's terrified.

[00:10:38] [SPEAKER_01]: It is.

[00:10:38] [SPEAKER_01]: But one other thing that stands out obviously with with that description,

[00:10:41] [SPEAKER_01]: obviously the terrible parallels of what's going on in Ukraine at the moment.

[00:10:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.

[00:10:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.

[00:10:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And the yeah, you're quite absolutely right.

[00:10:52] [SPEAKER_02]: That's some it doesn't sort of there.

[00:10:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's just going on and it's where it's going to lead

[00:11:02] [SPEAKER_02]: and how it's going to end is is is hard to tell.

[00:11:05] [SPEAKER_02]: But it didn't it didn't ideology, which is leading it now.

[00:11:10] [SPEAKER_02]: It's it's greed.

[00:11:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And but it's also Russian power and everything else.

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And interestingly enough, the Orthodox Church, which is the Russian

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Orthodox Church, which is even throughout all the Communists,

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_02]: yes, it managed to sort of keep going because ordinary people

[00:11:28] [SPEAKER_02]: believe in it.

[00:11:29] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, in Romania, there was Romanian Orthodox Church

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_02]: and it kept going and we had contacts with the Patriarchate.

[00:11:40] [SPEAKER_02]: But and the Communist could actually touch it because, in fact,

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_02]: too many people believed in it.

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_02]: But if you if you wanted to get on in the world,

[00:11:52] [SPEAKER_02]: you didn't go anywhere near a church.

[00:11:55] [SPEAKER_02]: But if you if you if but many people did and so it survived.

[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Indeed. Did you ever anticipate that you would see

[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Russia behaving in this way again after the Cold War?

[00:12:06] [SPEAKER_02]: No, who could possibly have anticipated this really?

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_02]: No, I mean, pretty pretty horrible.

[00:12:13] [SPEAKER_02]: But I've been there to Russia and Ukraine and

[00:12:18] [SPEAKER_02]: that's yeah, I think it's Putin.

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a sort of but it's one of the holes that communism has on people

[00:12:29] [SPEAKER_02]: is the very practical one that in a communist society,

[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_02]: it was it was very grim.

[00:12:36] [SPEAKER_02]: You couldn't say what you wanted.

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_02]: You could meet people who wanted to it was all sort of full of fear.

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_02]: But you always had a job.

[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_02]: There was no question.

[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_02]: There was no unemployment jobs.

[00:12:48] [SPEAKER_02]: You might your job was probably this need to telephone call

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_02]: or something like that.

[00:12:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And that, you know, you always had a job

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_02]: and people the our way of life is more precarious in that kind of way.

[00:13:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Can you talk to us about sort of his imprisonment?

[00:13:03] [SPEAKER_02]: He was imprisoned by the pro-German authorities

[00:13:06] [SPEAKER_02]: when he was in the farmhouse in the West

[00:13:09] [SPEAKER_02]: in the Eastern country when he was tortured.

[00:13:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And that that's when that was the end of the spiring

[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_02]: led by Ek and Ek went off after that.

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_01]: So he talked to us a bit about that when he when he realized

[00:13:22] [SPEAKER_02]: that he was actually working for the British Secret Service

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_02]: and not the French does the imperial.

[00:13:27] [SPEAKER_02]: The the fact was that he was part of a group of spy ring, if you like,

[00:13:34] [SPEAKER_02]: led by this very strange professor of Byzantology

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_02]: called Alexander Ek.

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. And it was this group was eventually betrayed

[00:13:46] [SPEAKER_02]: and they were all rounded up and sent off to a farmhouse in the country

[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_02]: where the Romanian fascist authorities beat them up

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_02]: and tried to extract secrets from them.

[00:14:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And then suddenly it was more or less the end of the war

[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_02]: and they were suddenly let free.

[00:14:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And that was really the end of the end of that.

[00:14:10] [SPEAKER_02]: But it was a particularly horrible experience.

[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, what effect did that have on George?

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think he was it would

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_02]: intimidated but not defeated, I think is the answer, really.

[00:14:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. But he and everybody hoped at that stage

[00:14:27] [SPEAKER_02]: when when the Allied troops moved into Romania,

[00:14:32] [SPEAKER_02]: people hoped that the king would stay and that things would be

[00:14:36] [SPEAKER_02]: would go well and all the rest.

[00:14:38] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think in fact, as the war ended

[00:14:42] [SPEAKER_02]: and the Allied troops without the Russian scale in the communist scale

[00:14:46] [SPEAKER_02]: in the not much rested.

[00:14:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's take a quick break and then we'll be right back.

[00:15:07] [SPEAKER_01]: So after the World War Two and Romania fell into the grip of Soviet communism,

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_01]: what were George's feelings of the growth of communism in Romania

[00:15:16] [SPEAKER_01]: and how did he react to it?

[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, he is a horror horror.

[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Because he gradually became at the end of the war

[00:15:29] [SPEAKER_02]: as the Germans moved out, the Soviets moved in

[00:15:34] [SPEAKER_02]: and very soon they started sort of

[00:15:38] [SPEAKER_02]: fixing everything.

[00:15:40] [SPEAKER_02]: There were plenty of people in Romania

[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_02]: who were intrigued by the thought

[00:15:46] [SPEAKER_02]: they had a career in the communist thing.

[00:15:49] [SPEAKER_02]: But he saw with horror that the whole of the society

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_02]: has been taken over by

[00:15:55] [SPEAKER_02]: by people with left-wing, very left-wing views.

[00:16:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And not only it was Russian authoritarianism,

[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_02]: it wasn't merely sort of being left-wing, obviously.

[00:16:06] [SPEAKER_02]: It was all that was Russian communism.

[00:16:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And he describes that with the various people he knew

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_02]: who either went along with it or didn't and so on.

[00:16:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was very, very uncomfortable.

[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.

[00:16:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And it had it was enforced with a kind of iron grip

[00:16:23] [SPEAKER_01]: from the authorities, wasn't it?

[00:16:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, if you sort of expressed views

[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_02]: against the communist government,

[00:16:32] [SPEAKER_02]: you were putting yourself in grave danger.

[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's what happened.

[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Can you talk to us about then that second time he was in prison?

[00:16:39] [SPEAKER_01]: So it was in 1950, wasn't it?

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was for 13 years.

[00:16:42] [SPEAKER_01]: What did he sort of experience during that time?

[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_02]: It was something you just have to endure.

[00:16:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And he says he describes in great detail

[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_02]: the early years of his imprisonment.

[00:16:54] [SPEAKER_02]: But then it is well after that,

[00:16:56] [SPEAKER_02]: but it was all much the same and one got used to it.

[00:16:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And so it was horrific, but you just sort of you were a prisoner.

[00:17:06] [SPEAKER_02]: I suppose it was a psychological effect of being a prisoner and awful.

[00:17:13] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it was completely utterly horrible, the whole thing.

[00:17:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely awful.

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and you met George then in the latter part

[00:17:23] [SPEAKER_01]: in this early, this was in the late 60s, wasn't it?

[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_01]: You met George that right?

[00:17:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[00:17:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. So can you talk to us about how you got to know him?

[00:17:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And I suppose what, what, you know,

[00:17:32] [SPEAKER_01]: what stood out for you about him as well?

[00:17:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And what were you what did you guys sort of discuss?

[00:17:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think that we got we got to know him, as you say,

[00:17:41] [SPEAKER_02]: because it was obviously a plan and he and his wife, Frogger,

[00:17:47] [SPEAKER_02]: who was married after he came out of prison

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_02]: when they had one child, one son.

[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And he thought to him and they were very keen to get out of Romania.

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_02]: At that stage, every Romanian practically

[00:17:58] [SPEAKER_02]: was keen on getting out of Romania.

[00:18:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And everybody thought the paradise

[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_02]: began on the other side of the Iron Curtain,

[00:18:06] [SPEAKER_02]: which of course it didn't.

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_02]: But that's what everybody thought.

[00:18:09] [SPEAKER_02]: So it was it was virtually impossible to get out of Romania.

[00:18:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Then he went to the seaside

[00:18:14] [SPEAKER_02]: and there were lots of nice beaches and people swimming and so on.

[00:18:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Never a boat, never, never a boat, any kind, not even a rowing boat.

[00:18:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, in case people tried to get away.

[00:18:27] [SPEAKER_02]: But he he and Frogger,

[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_02]: I together they must have discussed it and decided that the British owed him

[00:18:36] [SPEAKER_02]: a ticket out of Romania

[00:18:38] [SPEAKER_02]: because he had been sent to prison on the charge of spying for the British.

[00:18:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. So they must before we got there,

[00:18:46] [SPEAKER_02]: they must have been discussion and decision

[00:18:49] [SPEAKER_02]: that they should be put in touch with Martin and me.

[00:18:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And Martin went ahead of me and then I came

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_02]: sort of in the middle of the summer and almost a second day I was there.

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_02]: I was invited to tea by the ambassador's wife

[00:19:04] [SPEAKER_02]: and I took my youngest child, who was less than a year old at the time.

[00:19:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And we sat on the lawn at the ambassador's house

[00:19:14] [SPEAKER_02]: and and Frogger was there with this little boy

[00:19:17] [SPEAKER_02]: who was a bit old now that he was about two.

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And we had tea and Frogger explained a little bit

[00:19:24] [SPEAKER_02]: the circumstances and invited us to go

[00:19:27] [SPEAKER_02]: and have drinks with them a couple of nights later.

[00:19:31] [SPEAKER_02]: So it was it was it was they had the that Marzi had been lobbying

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_02]: to British Embassy, which is incredibly brave of them,

[00:19:39] [SPEAKER_02]: but they had done it and they had done it quite openly.

[00:19:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And they were the only Romanians we knew in any.

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And we had been told we would never know any Romanians

[00:19:50] [SPEAKER_02]: because they were all too frightened and and it was these two weren't.

[00:19:54] [SPEAKER_02]: They decided anyway, so we went and then had

[00:19:58] [SPEAKER_02]: we went to the house they were living, which was owned by a wonderful old lady

[00:20:02] [SPEAKER_02]: called Madame Nagaroo.

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And we had drinks on the lawn

[00:20:08] [SPEAKER_02]: and he greeted greeted us by saying,

[00:20:10] [SPEAKER_02]: ah, she's from Pudda James Bond.

[00:20:13] [SPEAKER_02]: So I thought I thought of calling the book

[00:20:16] [SPEAKER_02]: to begin with Pudda James Bond, but I thought it shouldn't be really in French.

[00:20:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, so it was it was their plan.

[00:20:24] [SPEAKER_02]: They felt that 13 years in Champs-Événiens jail

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_02]: entitled him to a ticket out of Romania, which only we provide.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_02]: That's what it was all about.

[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_02]: But in the meantime, we gained enormously from their friendship

[00:20:42] [SPEAKER_02]: and also also from the friendship with Madame Nagaroo,

[00:20:45] [SPEAKER_02]: who was a wonderful person.

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I have no idea what went on behind the scenes.

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_02]: All I know about the final decision allowing them to leave

[00:21:00] [SPEAKER_02]: was that there was a visit of the Foreign Secretary,

[00:21:03] [SPEAKER_02]: our foreign secretary Michael Stewart at the time.

[00:21:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was, I think in the course of that visit

[00:21:10] [SPEAKER_02]: that we were able to somehow

[00:21:13] [SPEAKER_02]: persuade the Romanian authorities to allow the Tomatius to leave

[00:21:18] [SPEAKER_02]: and come to come to the West.

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_02]: That's all I know, because, you know, I wasn't

[00:21:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't know anything that went on in the official circles.

[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah. Can you just just briefly for the audience,

[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_01]: just tell us a little bit about your husband

[00:21:32] [SPEAKER_01]: and why he was in Romania and why you're both in Romania?

[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, he he he was number two in the embassy there.

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. And that's why we were there.

[00:21:40] [SPEAKER_02]: He was a posting.

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_02]: And so we were both there and our children came

[00:21:45] [SPEAKER_02]: and for holidays and that kind of thing.

[00:21:48] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, that was once you once you had a kind of diplomatic wife,

[00:21:52] [SPEAKER_02]: you went where you were sent.

[00:21:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And that was that was our lot.

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_01]: What was it? What was life like for you during that time?

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, if if we had not known the Tomatius,

[00:22:06] [SPEAKER_02]: our life would have been confined to the diplomatic corps, really.

[00:22:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And and somebody told us so before we went,

[00:22:17] [SPEAKER_02]: they had been in Romania and they say it would be it is boring as hell

[00:22:21] [SPEAKER_02]: because you will never meet anybody except members of the diplomatic corps.

[00:22:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And because everybody is so well protocol

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_02]: and who who who any of the gentle protocol

[00:22:31] [SPEAKER_02]: that probably you will be sitting next to the same person

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_02]: at dinner for weeks and weeks on end.

[00:22:39] [SPEAKER_02]: By the end of it, you will either sort of not on speaking terms

[00:22:43] [SPEAKER_02]: or having an affair. But luckily,

[00:22:46] [SPEAKER_02]: we know we did have this amazing insight into

[00:22:51] [SPEAKER_02]: real Romania and what they were like.

[00:22:53] [SPEAKER_02]: It made an immense difference.

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. So your husband negotiated to get George out of Romania.

[00:22:58] [SPEAKER_01]: So what happened?

[00:22:59] [SPEAKER_01]: So what happened to George?

[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Where did he end up?

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, it wasn't only only Martin.

[00:23:04] [SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't only my husband.

[00:23:05] [SPEAKER_02]: It was some but I have no idea what I went on

[00:23:07] [SPEAKER_02]: because it was all nothing.

[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_02]: But I was told wasn't so anything.

[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_02]: They left just before Christmas at the end of 1969.

[00:23:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And I remember them going in a great rush of a snowstorm.

[00:23:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was dramatic and they seem to be late and they came anyway.

[00:23:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And they went to London, came to London.

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And on my wall, I've got a picture of the Square in Kensington

[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_02]: where they were put up by some by MI6

[00:23:39] [SPEAKER_02]: in some flat which belongs to them or something.

[00:23:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And they were there for a bit.

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Then we came, we were at home and we saw a bit of them.

[00:23:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And then we were sent off to Malawi,

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Contrast, and by the time we came back,

[00:23:54] [SPEAKER_02]: they had decided they had managed to move to Paris

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_02]: because they spoke French.

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's easy by this time,

[00:24:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Gigi by this time was in his secret, I think, or nearly.

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And he was francophone.

[00:24:09] [SPEAKER_02]: He spoke English but he lived within the effort.

[00:24:12] [SPEAKER_02]: So they went to Paris and they lived in a little flat

[00:24:15] [SPEAKER_02]: in the Rue de Vosgérat.

[00:24:17] [SPEAKER_02]: And whenever we were in Europe or England,

[00:24:20] [SPEAKER_02]: we used to see them.

[00:24:21] [SPEAKER_02]: But we spent long times abroad after that.

[00:24:25] [SPEAKER_02]: So it wasn't until Martin retired

[00:24:31] [SPEAKER_02]: that we saw them properly again.

[00:24:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, we did see them but not very often.

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_01]: What did George sort of get up to in Paris?

[00:24:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Was he now back in the arts and things?

[00:24:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, absolutely.

[00:24:41] [SPEAKER_02]: He was painting and he took himself very seriously

[00:24:47] [SPEAKER_02]: as a painter and he was disappointed

[00:24:52] [SPEAKER_02]: that he never got into the Paris art world properly,

[00:24:57] [SPEAKER_02]: never really accepted seriously.

[00:24:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And if he'd stayed in Romania,

[00:25:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I think he would have had a much better career as an artist

[00:25:05] [SPEAKER_02]: because he was already, we went one evening in Bucharest

[00:25:09] [SPEAKER_02]: one evening we had dinner with them at the artist club.

[00:25:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And he wouldn't have been allowed there

[00:25:14] [SPEAKER_02]: if he had been, unless he had been accepted

[00:25:17] [SPEAKER_02]: if you see what I mean.

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_02]: So I think in Romania, his art was taken much more seriously

[00:25:22] [SPEAKER_02]: whereas in London, in Paris rather, he never,

[00:25:26] [SPEAKER_02]: he sold a bit, particularly in Germany,

[00:25:28] [SPEAKER_02]: he went to Germany, he did some various things

[00:25:31] [SPEAKER_02]: about his career.

[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_02]: He was very disappointed, very, very disappointed.

[00:25:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And Fragge's wife had a job in publishing

[00:25:41] [SPEAKER_02]: and she adapted much better really.

[00:25:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And is this what led to,

[00:25:47] [SPEAKER_01]: what was it that led to the writing of his biography?

[00:25:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh well, wouldn't you want to write it?

[00:25:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Of course you would.

[00:25:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.

[00:25:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Was there a particular impetus

[00:25:56] [SPEAKER_01]: that sort of led him to starting it

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_01]: or was it just something that over time

[00:26:00] [SPEAKER_01]: he felt he should do?

[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Not over the time I think.

[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_02]: For Gossi Wirtz, he started writing it quite,

[00:26:06] [SPEAKER_02]: I can't remember the exact date

[00:26:07] [SPEAKER_02]: but it was quite soon after he had gone to Paris

[00:26:10] [SPEAKER_02]: that he started to write down the story of his life

[00:26:13] [SPEAKER_02]: which was, I mean writing,

[00:26:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I think he writes beautifully, absolutely beautifully.

[00:26:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And he writes with the eye, the pen of an artist,

[00:26:27] [SPEAKER_02]: his descriptions of the bright morning

[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_02]: of that moment in Ukraine.

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_02]: It's so beautiful.

[00:26:34] [SPEAKER_02]: He's an absolute artist that's bringing a place to life

[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_02]: and you're making see it from his eyes.

[00:26:42] [SPEAKER_02]: And he's a very good writer

[00:26:44] [SPEAKER_02]: and I respond to writing which makes you see what's happening.

[00:26:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_01]: He's incredibly well written

[00:26:53] [SPEAKER_01]: and I think it's an excellent read.

[00:26:55] [SPEAKER_01]: What is his of George's legacy?

[00:26:56] [SPEAKER_01]: How is he remembered today?

[00:26:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Is he remembered today or is he sort of forgotten?

[00:27:00] [SPEAKER_02]: If you look on Romanian websites

[00:27:01] [SPEAKER_02]: you will see that his book has been published there

[00:27:07] [SPEAKER_02]: as well in Romania.

[00:27:11] [SPEAKER_02]: He gave it to us, I think I said it was only a few months

[00:27:14] [SPEAKER_02]: as it happened, only a few months before he died.

[00:27:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And we took it, he sent it to us

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_02]: and I was working at the time

[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_02]: but I tried translating bits of it to making a synopsis

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_02]: and sending various publishers

[00:27:29] [SPEAKER_02]: but I didn't have any success

[00:27:31] [SPEAKER_02]: and because I was so busy

[00:27:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I put it away and didn't

[00:27:38] [SPEAKER_02]: and then it was an article by Timothy Galf-Garthmarsh

[00:27:43] [SPEAKER_02]: and he wrote something about going and looking up his

[00:27:47] [SPEAKER_02]: the files that the Stasi had on him in Germany when he was there

[00:27:51] [SPEAKER_02]: and that made me wonder what the files of the Securitati

[00:27:55] [SPEAKER_02]: might have had on Martin and me, which is plenty there.

[00:27:59] [SPEAKER_02]: But that made me go and look at the manuscript again

[00:28:01] [SPEAKER_02]: and instead of just translating bits

[00:28:04] [SPEAKER_02]: I looked at the whole and it needed a great deal of editing

[00:28:07] [SPEAKER_02]: as well as translation

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_02]: because it was not always in the thought of

[00:28:12] [SPEAKER_02]: I had to move bits about quite a bit

[00:28:16] [SPEAKER_02]: and so I was just amazed at what I had in front of me

[00:28:23] [SPEAKER_02]: it was so powerful and so coherent

[00:28:25] [SPEAKER_02]: and so brilliantly recorded that I kept on.

[00:28:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, no it was well worth it, well done for doing that.

[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And I published it myself in 2015

[00:28:38] [SPEAKER_02]: one of my granddaughters helped me to do it

[00:28:45] [SPEAKER_02]: but as a witness

[00:28:47] [SPEAKER_02]: but I didn't have any kind of access to publicity

[00:28:50] [SPEAKER_02]: there was a very big launch for it

[00:28:52] [SPEAKER_02]: the Remainians have a cultural place in Belgrade Square

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_02]: we had a huge launch party in Belgrade Square

[00:29:03] [SPEAKER_02]: and I felt quite a lot

[00:29:04] [SPEAKER_02]: but I didn't have any kind of links to anything else

[00:29:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I love writing

[00:29:10] [SPEAKER_02]: and I decided to get something to publish it for me

[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_02]: this man, Envelope Books

[00:29:18] [SPEAKER_02]: and he, Stephen Gaines

[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_02]: and he felled it around

[00:29:23] [SPEAKER_02]: and he found the witness

[00:29:25] [SPEAKER_02]: and it was he who said this ought to be published again

[00:29:27] [SPEAKER_02]: so that's how it's happening with time.

[00:29:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, fantastic, fantastic

[00:29:31] [SPEAKER_01]: and it's been re-titled obviously now, Spiret is present.

[00:29:34] [SPEAKER_01]: That's right, yes, that's it, yeah.

[00:29:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And sorry what was the original title again?

[00:29:38] [SPEAKER_01]: The Witness.

[00:29:39] [SPEAKER_01]: The witness, it's called The Witness.

[00:29:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, fantastic.

[00:29:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Well Jane, thank you so much for your time today

[00:29:45] [SPEAKER_01]: now before we part companies

[00:29:46] [SPEAKER_01]: is there anything else you'd like to add

[00:29:48] [SPEAKER_01]: before we wrap up any kind of like final thoughts

[00:29:50] [SPEAKER_01]: or anything that's sort of relevant that we may have missed?

[00:29:53] [SPEAKER_02]: He was very amazed, happy to be in Paris

[00:29:55] [SPEAKER_02]: but disappointed that his art was not appreciated

[00:29:58] [SPEAKER_02]: which I mean it's naive of him in a way

[00:30:02] [SPEAKER_02]: to think that the French art establishment

[00:30:04] [SPEAKER_02]: would sort of rush out and greet him.

[00:30:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway.

[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no sad isn't it in some ways

[00:30:11] [SPEAKER_01]: because especially for some of the sort of

[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_01]: you know sort of activities during the war

[00:30:15] [SPEAKER_01]: and stuff is a shame those sort of things don't

[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_01]: tend to count when it comes to

[00:30:18] [SPEAKER_01]: appreciation of your art.

[00:30:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Quite, yeah absolutely.

[00:30:22] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a hard-headed market.

[00:30:23] [SPEAKER_02]: It is indeed.

[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_01]: It is like the film businesses.

[00:30:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Like the book business too actually.

[00:30:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[00:30:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Well where can listeners find out more about you

[00:30:37] [SPEAKER_01]: and the book?

[00:30:38] [SPEAKER_02]: If you look on Finding Amazon

[00:30:41] [SPEAKER_02]: and my book about my childhood is Nell Norah Jane.

[00:30:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Nell Norah was a horror art

[00:30:47] [SPEAKER_02]: and Jane is me.

[00:30:50] [SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[00:30:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And that tells me my background.

[00:30:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Apart from that

[00:30:55] [SPEAKER_02]: I've done so many different things.

[00:31:00] [SPEAKER_01]: But I believe is it EnvelopeBooks.co.uk

[00:31:02] [SPEAKER_01]: or the publisher aren't they?

[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's right.

[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah and you can find the book there.

[00:31:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And on Amazon and sort of various other things.

[00:31:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Excellent, excellent.

[00:31:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Jane thank you so much for joining me today.

[00:31:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Not a bit.

[00:31:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay fine.

[00:31:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening.

[00:31:44] [SPEAKER_00]: This is Secrets and Spies.