The Forgotten Spy Read Online Free Page A

terraces of Edmonton. Behind the scenes, one detects the influence of Carrie’s family, who were continuing to move up in the world – her brother, Henry George Holloway junior, was building a commercial empire in Thanet whilst performing civic tasks as a registrar and collector of local taxes. Another brother, William, was despatched at the earliest possible opportunity into the Royal Marines where he eventually attained the rank of lieutenant. Meanwhile, Ern Holloway had chosen a career overseas in the Diplomatic Service and rose through the echelons of the postal service in Southern Rhodesia, to the point where he was listed in the Colonial Office lists as a key civil servant in the administration. By coincidence, he returned to England on 6 August 1909, having sailed first-class on the
Imanda
from Durban and it may well have been his encouragement – and possibly funding as well – that enabled his nephew to attend Muncaster House. This was the sort of schooling that would prepare a young man for a white collar professional career or a commission in the army.
    Whatever the motivation for the later part of his schooling, the experience had the desired effect. Rather than train as a teacher, Ernest Oldham decided to apply to join the civil service, which at the time was only accessible via competitive examination. Later documents, based on information provided by Oldham himself, stated that he successfully sat and passed the test for the position of second division clerk in the civil service on 13 November 1913. This is untrue. There was no examination for second division clerk held on that date and the surviving papers kept by the Civil Service Commission for the examination held on 22 September 1913 fail to reveal Oldham’s name amongst the candidates. Earlier records show that he actually sat the exam on 7 October 1912, just after his 18th birthday, having left Muncaster House in the summer. The reason for this deception is clear when the results areexamined more closely; candidate no 721, EH Oldham, came a disappointing 702 nd out of a field of over 1,500 candidates – only the top 150 were offered jobs, which meant that he was unsuccessful in securing work.
    His English and handwriting weren’t too bad – 380 and 360 marks out of a possible 400 respectively – but manuscript-copying, an important skill for a clerk, only earned him 136 marks out of 200, while he was weak in languages (Latin 195 out of 400, French much better with 307, but no attempt made to take German) and he hardly covered himself in glory with his mathematical abilities (elementary maths and arithmetic 230 and 290 out of 400). In fact, his strongest subject aside from English was science (360 marks). 6
    At the tender age of 18, this setback should have marked the end of Oldham’s aspirations for a civil service career before it had even got off the ground, but there was still a glimmer of hope. Many of the unsuccessful candidates ended up being selected over the course of the year as those above them failed to take up their posts and replacements were summoned further down the list. Even so, it would have been an awfully long time before Oldham could have expected to be called up, given his lowly position. Once again the influence of his uncle can be discerned behind the scenes.
    Ern Holloway returned to England from East London, South Africa, on the
Galician
, docking at Southampton on 23 July 1913 – once again travelling first-class but this time accompanied by his young wife who was 18 years his junior. Holloway was described as a civil servant on the passenger list and one suspects that during his stay in England he caught up with his London chums in the service and put in a good word for his nephew, as one did in those days, before he returned to South Africa on 15 November. It is perhaps no coincidence that Ernest Oldham was called up for the civil service the same month and on 11 December 1913 was formally appointed to the Board of