Olga Gray was an ordinary London secretary, but also a
significant double-agent. During the 1930s she posed as a Soviet agent whilst working
for MI5.
Olga was born in Manchester in 1906 and lived in Birmingham.
In 1931 she was recruited into MI5 by Dolly Pyle, an agent of the famous
spymaster Maxwell Knight. Subsequently, Olga moved to London, but continued to
work for the Automobile Association (AA) as a cover for her secret work. At Knight’s instigation, Olga
attended meetings of the Friends of the Soviet Union and was eventually offered
part-time work for the organisation. This was largely run by the Communist
Party of Great Britain (CPGB) led by Harry Pollitt. Another key CPGB member,
Percy Glading, became Olga’s Communist controller. But before being trusted
with secret work for the Soviet Union, Olga was sent on a mission to India
involving an illicit transfer of funds. This demanding journey, on top of an already
unhappy existence in London, caused her to experience a mental breakdown in
1935. She wanted to end all espionage work at this point, but Maxwell Knight
persuaded her to persist. Knight was an effective controller but a definite
eccentric. He kept an assortment of pets and would later present nature
programmes for the BBC. He was married three times, and also had several chaste
relationships with female agents, though there is no evidence that this
occurred in Olga’s case. But Percy Glading is thought to have been keen on her,
an added difficulty when they later worked together at Holland Road,
Kensington.
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| Olga Gray (from Mail Online article) |
Olga met several Communist agents, including Arnold Deutsch
and Theodore Maly, the chief USSR agent in the UK during the 1930s. The
knowledge she acquired was critical to the success of 1938 Woolwich Arsenal
Case leading to the incarceration of Glading and others. As a reward for her
efforts, Olga was taken to dinner in the Ritz when the case ended. But the
event also marked her dismissal from MI5 on the basis that her cover was blown.
She stayed in SE England and became an ambulance driver during WW2. During this
time, she met a Canadian serviceman whom she married, and they moved to Canada around
the end of the War. There is no evidence that she did any further work for
either the British or Canadian secret services, but in the 1980s she was
visited at her home in in a Toronto suburb by the journalist Anthony Masters
who was undertaking research for a biography of Maxwell Knight. Unfortunately,
he also wrote a Mail on Sunday article which revealed details of Olga’s
past and present which caused her a further mental relapse.
Olga Gray is one of the two lead characters in Parallel Shadows. The novel provides a fairly faithful portrayal of her pre-War
activities, highlighting her bravery and ingenuity despite many dangers. A plausible
post-War intelligence role is also created in which Olga identifies further
Soviet agents, and reflects on the parallel life
of a contemporary spy, Melita Norwood.
References
Andrew, C. (2009) The Defence of the Realm: The
authorised history of MI5. Allen Lane, London.
Burke, D. (2008) The Spy who came in from the Co-op.
Boydell Press, Suffolk.
Hemming, H. (2017) Maxwell Knight, MI5’s Greatest
Spymaster. Preface, London.
Hemming, H. (2017) The peroxide blonde who was
Britain’s bravest spy: How Olga Gray risked her life to stop the Soviets
stealing our war secrets despite being crippled by insecurity. Mail Online.
Available at: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4845218/Britain-s-bravest-spy-Olga-Gray-thwarted-Soviets.html
Masters, A. (1984) The Man who was M. Grafton, London
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