The Forgotten Spy Read Online Free

with the daily chores or indeed heat the property – a real concern when trying to look after a new baby, especially during the harsh winter of 1894–95 when temperatures in mid-February never crept above freezing. Hand-powered washing machines had been in use from Victorian times but refrigerators for food storage were not invented until the 1910s and remained unwieldy, unaffordable and often unsafe until the 1920s’ introduction of Freon. This was an early CFC which was far less dangerous to people in terms of domestic leaks but, as we now know, incredibly damaging to the ozone layer.
    When the Oldham children were growing up at the start of the 20th century, people used outdoor pantries to keep food chilled but mostly bought daily produce from local shops, farms or dairies. Electric street lighting had started to appear in the area from the early 1900s, although it wasn’t until 1913 that Edmonton fully abandoned gas lamps. The supply of domestic electricity from 1907 brought the enticing prospect of modern conveniences, although onthe grounds of cost most appliances would remain a dream for many of the residents of Bury Street. Into the first decades of the 20th century and beyond, women like Carrie would still beat carpets and rugs in the street and scrub their doorsteps while her children played in the car-free roads outside.
    Frank embraced his new life in the community. He already had a talent for music and was asked by the vicar of St Michael’s to become the organist for the congregation. His position secured his family their seats in the vicar’s pew at the front of the church for every service and his children a first-hand view of the sermons that were preached. Frank also found time to train local choirs, reputedly to competition-winning standard, and spent the remainder of his spare time involved in study, acquiring a range of certificates and diplomas to prove his academic merit.
    Despite never breaking through the class divide to teach at Latymer school, Edmonton’s nearby grammar school, in 1903 he was selected to serve as first assistant master of Houndsfield Road council school before eventually being made headmaster in 1916, a position he retained until his retirement in 1930. The council school was a much larger establishment than its older and more refined neighbour; in contrast with the 24 pupils taught at Latymer’s new buildings which opened in 1910, the staff at Houndsfield had over a thousand students in their care. As such, it is fair to assign to Frank the rather hackneyed but well-merited description of pillar of the community, for which he was formally recognised by the Anglican Consultative Council with the award of the Distinguished Service Medal in 1928. A clasp was granted for it five years later, when he and Carrie made the somewhat sudden and unexpected decision in 1933 to leave their home of 40 years and retire to Shanklin on the Isle of Wight.
    Ernest Oldham, however, attended Tottenham County School, one of the first co-educational secondary schools in the county that had been established by Middlesex County Council in 1901, pre-empting Balfour’s Education Act passed the following year which gave more power to local councils to create state schools. Then, instead of following in his parents’ footsteps and pursuing a career in community-based education – and perhaps reinforcing the aspirational nature of Frank’s rise through the elementary school ranks – a decisionwas taken to send Ernest to Muncaster House school, often rather confusingly called Muncaster College, a small sixth-form boarding school situated in the small village of Laleham on Ferry Lane by the banks of the River Thames.
    This was the sort of school usually reserved for the sons of senior army officers or even the offspring of members of Parliament – by no means an elite public school such as Eton, but nonetheless a step up from Ernest’s social background and a world away from the working-class