Book at Beachtime: Red Joan

Editor's Note: You can listen to Book at Beachtime: Red Joan from Monday 15 July

The inspiration for Red Joan comes from the story of Melita Norwood and her outing in the press at the age of 87 as the KGB’s longest-serving Cold War spy. Gradually, it transpired that this little old lady had been secretary to the director of the British Non-Ferrous Metals Association for thirty-five years (1937 – 1972), and during this time had succeeded in passing to Russian intelligence a huge volume of highly confidential information, the most significant being the latest scientific research on how to build an atom bomb. 

After her retirement, the Soviet government recognised her contribution by awarding her the Order of the Red Banner – the highest decoration available to a civilian – along with an all-expenses paid trip to Russia and the offer of a Soviet pension, and she was acknowledged as having generated more significant intelligence than any of the Cambridge Five. But, unlike them, she never once breathed a word of it to anyone.

When she was first approached Melita Norwood was on her way back from the supermarket, prompting the great headline in The Times: The Spy Who Came In From The Co-op. The fact that she was still a Communist and distributed the Morning Star to subscribers in her neighbourhood was commented on in the press, alongside comments about the CND sticker in her window and the Che Guevara mugs in her kitchen cupboard, but it was her stoicism which seemed to me the most remarkable thing about her.

Her statement harked back to the economic and social conditions prevalent in 1930s Britain, and made clear that her motivation had been a moral one. It represented an attempt to contribute to the greater good of humanity, however misguided that attempt later turned out to be. Affordable bus fares, healthcare and education for all: these were the things she cared about, and she believed that supporting Communist Russia, in whatever way she could, was the only way to safeguard the basic principles of fairness and equality.

She was wrong, of course, but Melita Norwood’s story shifted my view of the world. It made me think in a new way about what it would take to make someone betray their country. Not just about who they might be and why they might do it, but also what they would have to sacrifice in order to do so.

However, as the title suggests, Red Joan is not about Melita. Melita Norwood came from a Russian family, was not particularly well-educated, and remained a committed Communist until the end of her life. That wasn’t the story I wanted to write. I wanted a protagonist who was more ambivalent in her beliefs, who was torn by the choices she had to make; someone who found herself in a position where she had the opportunity to make the world a fairer, safer place, according to her own idea of morality, but in order to do so she would have to betray her country, her family, herself.

And so Joan was born.

Listen to Book at Beachtime

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