Section D and Russian Intrigue So far, we’ve learned that Captain Ernest Brown was not only questioned about the Nightingale Shore murder, he was also questioned about two other serious incidents: the murder of a police officer in Turkey, and spying on subs in Glasgow’s Faslane Naval Base. In the first of these, the Nightingale…
Beacon Towers – The Sands Point Mansion that Gatsby Made His Home
Whether you’ve seen the films or read the books, the thing that everybody seems to remember most about The Great Gatsby is the fantastic house and the riotous parties. But where did Scott get his inspiration for the house? And what was the house intended to say? At the time the novel was written Scott…
Alexis Sheftel’s Stars and Stripes Revolution
Less than 72 hours after the missing police chief’s daughter Barbara Lopukhin knocked at the door of Woburn Place and reassured everyone of her safety, Hastings compositor Alexis Sheftel boarded the RMS Lusitania in Liverpool and made the three thousand mile journey in steerage to start a new life in New York. The date was…
Hem Interview — Rabbit Songs
Violins, mandolins and deep flowing intakes of clear fresh air. Hem return to their roots and add something new to an ongoing American narrative. Forget the new Lambchop album. The future’s where you left it. The song, ’Lazy Eye’ draws attention to the hem of the dress of an old, possibly lost love: “There’s a…
Tinker, Toplis, Soldier … Spy?
At the time the military camp riots were taking place in France, Britain was in the grip of a paranoia about German Spies and Russian anarchists. It saw them everywhere. In his 1922 book Queer People, Intelligence Chief, Sir Basil Thomson offers his own sardonic take on the affliction: “I began to think in those…
United Russia Societies Association
Just weeks before Russia February Revolution swept Tsar Nicholas II from power, a crack team of Russian intelligence specialists, diplomats and Anglo-Russian Oligarchs pooled resources to form the United Russia Societies Association. As Britain pinned its hopes on the incoming Kerensky Government, Liberals and Conservatives In Britain looked forward to a whole new era in…
Harold Williams and the British Russian Bureau
A look at the respected Russian scholar, propagandist and multi-linguist, Harold Williams in the context of the first English translation of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in January 1920. This article explores the relationship between Williams, Sir Bernard Pares, the United Russia Societies Association and the Anglo-Russian Bureau during the 1915-1919 period. Born…
Eribi Holdings, Eddie Lister and the Race to Rebuild Libya
Recent events in Ukraine have turned the spotlight once again on Putin’s influence in British Politics. At the time that Britain and the UN Security Council was preparing to engage in military action against Gaddafi’s forces in Libya in 2011, Boris Johnson, then London’s mayor, backed Putin’s rejection of the No Fly Zone. In 2017,…
Edward Griffiths George Burdon (1873-1937)
The most deadly deep fake in history. Despite being exposed as a fake in 1921, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion which tells of a secret Jewish plot to destroy and take over the world went on to play its part in the suffering and brutal murder of over six million men, women and…
Lenin at 21 Tavistock Square, London, St Pancras 1908
21 Tavistock Place, St Pancras — 1908 In May 1908, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin arrives back in London carrying a written recommendation from Joseph J. Terrett in support of a request for entry into the British Museum Library. Sadly, on being unable to find a Joseph J. Terrett at the address provided on the reference, the…