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Spies from our area.


Stunmon

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There doesn't seem to be much information on the web about Gerald Brooke who I think was a Soviet spy and a teacher at Firth Park Grammar School. Or about the Pragers, Nicholas and Jarmila who I think lived at Rotherham. Does anyone have any information about them?

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I was a pupil at Firth Park Grammar School at the time.  As I understood it the situation was that Gerald Brooke had been a former pupil at the school. The police came to interview Mr Haywood, who had taught him Russian. I thought GS had been distrubuting bibles in Russia, which caused him to be arrested.

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I've found this on Gerald Brooke

https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2011/jul/25/russia-communism

which reports on his homecoming.

[Gerald Brooke, a British lecturer, was held in a Soviet prison for four years for distributing "subversive" literature. He was freed in exchange for the release of two Soviet spies, Peter and Helen Kroger, members of the Portland spy ring imprisoned for passing on secrets about the Royal Navy's underwater warfare programme.]

There's also this mentioning the Pragers

http://osaarchivum.org/files/holdings/300/8/3/text/67-3-156.shtml

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Like Tony Sarjeant I was also a pupil at FPGS when Gerald Brooke was a sixth form prefect in that hallowed institution. His "crime" was to be set up by the KGB to be used in an exchange for real Soviet spies.

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Did Gerald Brooke eventually become a lecturer in Russian at FPGS (affectionately known as the Redcap School)?

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Not sure, but he certainly wouldn't have been a "lecturer" at the Redcaps or, as it was sometimes known ,the Blood Nuts,...he would have been a "Master".

 Boris Heywood taught there for many years and I am not sure if he continued after the place became a "Comp" or, indeed, if Russian continued to be taught. My son , who left 30 plus years ago, certainly never had the option.

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