Daughter. Her ability to understand technical material meant she was promoted to secretary to the director. The last time she visited Russia was in 1979, with her husband, when she says she again rejected financial reward. '', Ray Simmons, 67, a retired chief technician at the University of Greenwich, who lives nearby, commented: ''I've known her for 20 years, and she never gave a hint of anything like that. It was incredibly valuable. The Getty Images design is a trademark of Getty Images. Norwood was survived by her daughter, two grandchildren and a great-grandchild. The cause of death was not disclosed. She retired in 1972, and remained in her Bexleyheath home until her death in 2005. The daughter of a Latvian father and an English mother, Norwood held fiercely left-wing views from an early age. "I thought perhaps what I had access to might be useful in helping Russia to keep abreast of Britain, America and Germany. Streamline your workflow with our best-in-class digital asset management system. The public were shocked when elderly woman Melita Norwood was uncovered as a KGB spy. . She was born Melita Sirnis in 1912 near Southampton, the daughter of an English mother and a Latvian father who was a follower of Leo Tolstoy. Like many nonagenarians, Melita Norwood did her best to keep her mind active. Filming of Red Joan in Cambridge City Centre (Image: Keith Jones) Red Joan is a film based, although highly romanticised, on the true story of spy Melita Norwood who stole . Melita Norwood. Melita Norwood, nee Sirnis, was born in 1912, the English daughter of a Latvian father and a British mother, and grew up in unremarkable circumstances in the Home Counties. Anita said: She kept it from everyone. what happened to melita norwood. After that, although she wasnt arrested, she found she was no longer getting access to confidential material.. 00:34 GMT 19 Jul 2014 It was not that side I was interested in. Anita Ferguson, the daughter of Melita Norwood, "has spoken of her distress at discovering the double life led by her mother throughout her childhood." His occupation was Yes. 00:48 GMT 19 Jul 2014. Lived In Woodbridge VA, Cranberry Township PA, Mentor OH, Aurora IL. The elderly woman exposed as the longest-serving Soviet spy in Britain was a fresh-faced 25-year-old when her political idealism first drove her into spying for the Soviet Union. She had been working for five years in the general office of the British Non Ferrous Metals Research Association in Euston, North London when her career in espionage first began. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Anita Lynn Ferguson, 75. Judi Dench Her father had fled from Russia to England and found a home here, but this meant little to Norwood. Kamala opts out of kneeling with Biden for Warriors photo op. Red Joan (2018) Ben Miles as Nick IMDb. In 1999, an 87-year-old British woman held a press conference in front of her home to announce that for nearly four decades, shed worked as a spy for the Soviet Union. It seemed that Britain was headed into another of the spy expose frenzies that have occurred periodically with the unmaskings of men like Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross who followed their Communist sympathies into espionage. Kamala opts out of kneeling with Biden for Warriors photo op. From World War II through the Cold War, she stole nuclear secrets from the office where she worked as a secretary and passed them to Moscow. Anita FergusonMelita Norwood / Daughter. Resides in Monticello, AR. anita ferguson daughter of melita norwood About; FAQ; Contacts; Location; Rose, David. Her daughter, Anita Ferguson, said she died on June 2. But she continued to send these secret files until the early 1970s, when she retired as a spy. If you want to learn more about this . As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. And the sleepy South Staffordshire . She was a bit worried so she took an aspirin before going in. Why Bother? Melita Norwood, pictured here at age 87 in 1999, standing outside her home in Bexleyheath, where she reads a statement to the press concerning her involvement in passing over atomic secrets to the KGB. ''I thought they should somehow be adequately defended because everyone was against them, against this experiment, and they had been through such hardship from the Germans,'' she told her television interviewer. She was dressed in a wide collared lavender floral print blouse and gray tweed skirt and clutching a handwritten piece of paper with slightly trembling fingers. In 1979, she and her husbandwho knew about her spying and disapprovedvisited Moscow so the Soviet Union could award her the Order of the Red Banner (she accepted the honorary award, but turned down the financial reward). Creative Editorial Spy/Daughter Anita Ferguson Anita Ferguson, a school laboratory technician from Wombourne, Staffordshire, speaks to the media following the news that her 87-year-old mother Melita Norwood spied for the Russians for 40 years. ''I would not have liked to have kept such a secret.''. Melita Norwood aka Hola | Photo Credits: Green Left When asked to picture a KGB spy who smuggled nuclear secrets during the heights of the cold war, very few would imagine an 87-year-old great . Melita Norwood akhirnya meninggal dunia pada tahun 2005 tetapi orang tetap terpesona dengan kisah hidupnya. ''I thought, 'Who is this nutter?' In real life, Norwood was a Communist from an early age. In times of uncertainty you need journalism you can trust. Born to a British mother and Latvian father, Norwood is most famous for supplying the Soviet Union with state secrets concerning the development of atomic weapons from her job at the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association, where she . Anita Ferguson, the daughter of Melita Norwood, "has spoken of her distress at discovering the double life led by her mother throughout her childhood." She was characterized as a "disciplined and Anita Ferguson, a school laboratory technician from Wombourne, Staffordshire, speaks to the media following the news that her 87-year-old mother. Alma mater. Secrets of Bletchley Park: How codebreakers paved way for World War 2 victory, Ex-spy killing 'linked to unsolved murder of Brit family in the Alps', Novichok victim Charlie Rowley asks Putin's man 'did you kill my girlfriend? I thought perhaps what I had access to might be useful in helping Russia to keep abreast of Britain, America and Germany. She added that, in general, I do not agree with spying against one's country.. She began spying for the Soviet Union four years after Josef Stalin took power, working under the code name "Hola". Lettes work for the Soviets continued right up until her retirement from the company in 1972, when she was 60. She is interrogated by two detectives from Scotland Yard, whom she accuses of misunderstanding her life, but gradually concedes that she did provide information to the Soviets. I talked to her about the spying, but she told me very little of what she had done, though she did say my father didnt approve. You can cancel anytime and if you cancel within 14 days you won't be billed. The extent of Norwoods betrayal only became clear in 1999 after Russian defector Vasili Mitrokhin opened up his KGB files to MI5 and British journalists. The Soviet Union's bomb coincided with the onset of The Cold War, and threatened humankind with extinction. The couple had one child, Anita, who was born in 1943. Melita Norwood She was, in many ways, the perfect spy, living during most of her long years of treason in a pebble-dash semi in Bexleyheath, South-East London, with her maths and chemistry teacher husband Hilary, growing fresh vegetables in her back garden allotment and bringing up their daughter Anita. On nights when she was delayed getting home by her appointments with her K.G.B. ''In the war the Russians were on our side, and it was unfair to them that they shouldn't be able to develop their weaponry.''. She connects with her former Communist lover Leo who encourages her to hand over secrets to the Russians. Melita Norwood was a die-hard communist and unapologetic about her spying. Melita Norwood made her unrepentant confession Saturday in the well-tended garden of freesia and daisies in front of her two-story stucco home in Bexleyheath, southeast London. July 21, 2020 | Rating: 2.5/4 | Full Review, Your email address will not be published. Melita Norwood aged 87 when she faced the cameras ( Image: PA) Sophie Cookson plays Joan Stanley, who is based on Norwood ( Image: Nick Wall/Lions Gate) Don't Miss Norwood wasn't a. One was in his office and the other at his London home. Unlike those Mata Hari-style seductresses whose treachery is based in the boudoir, Mrs Norwood was a very different kind of agent. The next four decades saw her hand over secrets and files under the name of Agent Hola. Judi Dench gives us the painful memories and rickety joints of the old Joan, tending a garden in the suburbs in 2000 when Special . She's a very good person, very strong and totally unmaterialistic," she told The Daily Mail at the time. It also offered her a pension of 20 a month. . We cannot guarantee accuracy of data published on this website. Her handler described her as a loyal, trustworthy, disciplined agent who passed to the KGB a large amount of vital data. Norwood admitted she'd sometimes be typing up notes from meetings and then "typed an extra copy" to send on. Year old great-grandmother Melita Norwood stands outside her home in Bexleyheath, where she reads a statement to the press concerning her involment. The British government decided nothing was to be gained from sending the "granny spy" to prison, and Mrs Norwood was left in peace at her home in Bexleyheath. She has one daughter who works in a school laboratory, two grandchildren and a great-grandchild. Klaus Fuchs, Physicist Who Gave Atom Secrets to Soviet, Dies at 76 The New York Times. Is it time Harry & Meghan accept Clarkson's apology and move on? The film portrays Norwood as a doddering old woman that when unmasked struggles to understand what she did wrong and what is happening to her. But she always felt she did the right thing. ''It is a longstanding policy not to confirm or deny the details of security service investigations,'' she said. In fact, Melita Norwood was the Soviet Union's longest-serving British spy. She says she was working for the ideology not the financial reward. '', See the article in its original context from. Melita Stedman Norwood (ne Sirnis) (25 March 1912 - 2 June 2005) was a British civil servant and KGB intelligence source who, for a period of about 40 years following her recruitment in 1937, supplied the KGB (and its predecessor agencies) with state secrets from her job at the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association. Her espionage activities weren't publicly revealed until 1999, when former archivist Vasili Mitrokhin - who. She was only a secretary.. In Wombourne, South Staffordshire, 120 miles away, her daughter Anita, a school laboratory technician, was astonished at the revelations about her elderly mother, and described herself as being in a state of disbelief. We also may change the frequency you receive our emails from us in order to keep you up to date and give you the best relevant information possible. Daughter Anita tried to downplay the damage Norwood had done, saying: There are questions about whether it was really useful at all to the Russians. How fortunate she was. As the news of Norwoods espionage broke in The Times, Norwood held a press conference to confirm that she was a spy and explain why shed done it. Spy Melita Norwood (far left) pictured with her mother Gertrude, sister Gerty and half-brother Alfred Brandt. But while Norwood's intentions are still up for debate, what she did is not. Also known as Anita A James, Ferguson Anita. Lived In Garland TX, Duncanville TX, Dallas TX, Desoto TX. Her mother still remained part of the Left-wing political scene, influencing young Norwood who then joined the CPGB. And how had the mole managed to infiltrate our system? Still, she refuses to discuss the actual passing over of documents and refuses to say who wooed her to the KGB. Universitas Southampton. ''I did what I did not to make money but to help prevent the defeat of a new system which had, at great cost, given ordinary people food and fares which they could afford, a good education and a health service,'' she read in a firm voice. Incredibly, despite doubts about her extreme Left-wing sympathies and links, she was cleared. Close. How she came to be in a position to do that is a source of great embarrassment to MI5. Following in her fathers footsteps, Norwood joined the Communist Party. handlers, she said, she would blame it on traffic tie-ups -- an excuse he accepted though he knew it to be sham. Red Joan is released in cinemas on April 19, 2019. This means that we may include adverts from us and third parties based on our knowledge of you. He said in the 1960s, the security services concluded that Norwood had been a spy, but felt they had no "usable evidence" to prosecute. The KGBs man on the inside was in fact Melita Norwood, a grey-haired, tea-drinking woman in her eighties who enjoyed tending the roses at her semi-detached home in suburban South East London. 2023 Getty Images. Collect, curate and comment on your files. She was recruited as a Russian agent by journalist Andrew Rothstein in 1934, at the age of just 22. Find family history information in a whole new way Create a free family tree for yourself or for Melita Sirnis and we'll search for valuable new information for you. She claims failing memory as a reason for not being able to recall the names of any of the people she dealt with. Geoffrey Levy for MailOnline She was dressed in a wide-collared lavender floral print blouse and gray tweed skirt and clutched a handwritten piece of paper with slightly trembling fingers. Norwood, who joined the Communist Party in the 1930s, had access to British atomic secrets through her office job at the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association, which was involved in metallurgical research associated with the atomic bomb project. As a member of the Independent Labour Party, and later the Communist Party, she had already been recruited as an agent at a meeting of the Friends of the Soviet Union. 2023 Getty Images. It came as a massive shock to her daughter and to Dr Burke, who already knew Norwood. Anita L Ferguson, 52. Access the best of Getty Images and iStock with our simple subscription plan. Known as ''Letti'' to her friends, she was identified in K.G.B. ''When I first saw all the. Author David Burke, who wrote a book about Melita's extraordinary life, was told by Norwood herself that it was she that approached them not the other way around. She said her purpose had been to keep Russia abreast.". In 1958 she was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, which is given for heroism in combat or long service in the armed forces. <br> <br>1. During that time she had handed over the country's secrets - willingly - to Russia, among them crucial information about the atomic bomb and its development. We sent soldiers there to die against Hitler. I did not want money. Born in 1912 she was brought up with Communists, Socialists and Leninists. The ideologically driven spy turned down a Russian pension and was never paid for her undercover work. It was a terrible shock. Today brings a fresh reminder of a national disgrace, the failure to prosecute Melita Norwood for treason. Selama sekitar 40 tahun sejak ia direkrut pada 1937, ia memberikan rahasia- rahasia negara kepada KGB (dan . At the height of the war in 1943, she took time off to have a child, Anita. "I do not consider myself a spy," she told reporters. She was lovely, a pure lady, says Sheila Howell, who was a neighbour for more than 20 years. She'd potter around the streets after her morning cup of tea, out of her Che Guevera mug, and deliver copies of the Communist Party newspaper, The Morning Star. Members of her family didnt know what was going on at all. Melita Norwood: The Soviet Union's Longest-Serving British Spy 220,739 views Mar 20, 2020 7K Dislike Share Save Biographics 2.08M subscribers Check out Business Blaze:. A fresh reminder of a national disgrace, the failure to prosecute Melita Norwood her. Based in the boudoir, Mrs Norwood was a neighbour for more than 20 years article its. Work for the ideology not the financial reward left ) pictured with her K.G.B has one daughter works! Passed to the KGB financial reward part of the Left-wing political scene, young! Consider myself a spy delivery and digital subscribers though he knew it to be sham journalist... 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