- Contributed by
- Goldfinger
- People in story:
- Alfred John Gould
- Location of story:
- England and Switzerland
- Article ID:
- A2057816
- Contributed on:
- 17 November 2003
My father who sadly died last year was born in London in 1918 but grew up in Basle in Switzerland.His mother was Swiss and his Father was British. Because he was multi lingual he volunteered for service at the British Consular at the outbreak of war and started work as a night watchman and was asked to moniter German radio stations at night.
Further training in the uk took him into intelligence work,presumably for MI5, most of which he would only talk of very briefly or not at all!He was involved in training other 'spies' for the secret service. However, we do know that he used to moniter German troops who were allowed over the passes in the Valais region into Italy and report movements back to the British. He used to travel to the uk via Portugal by air, evidently a dangerous pursuit. Furthermore, that he was accused of trying to blow up the 'Lonza' power plant in Brig, Valais,( a fact that he vehemently denied), captured and tried by the swiss authorities.Presumably because the Swiis were 'neutral', he was accused of being a traitor and was thrown into prison from 1942-1944 (we have verification papers that affirm this).
Dometically he married a swiss girl in about 1939, and had a son. Simultaneously, he met my mother, Teresa in London and decided he preferred her, abandoned his first wife and went on to have nine children. We only discovered this information shorly before he died. It seems that the world war was a time for covering up unethical behaviour..... but then he always was rather a darkhorse, perhaps he was agood 'spy' for that reason?
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