Royal secret agent breaks her silence

The Honourable Margaret Rhodes has told of how she was recruited into the shadowy world of espionage after volunteering to ‘do her bit’ during the Second World War.

Like Jane Moneypenny in the James Bond series, the first cousin of the future monarch was employed as a secretary to the head of MI6.

Confidentiality clauses signed by the Scot, who later served as lady-in-waiting to her aunt, the Queen Mother, prevented her from disclosing any details of her role in Britain’s secret service.

However, the 86-year-old, who grew up at Carberry Tower, near Musselburgh, has now divulged details of her clandestine contribution to the war effort in a book.

The daughter of the 16th Lord Elphinstone, who was a bridesmaid at the Queen’s wedding and still regularly receives visits from Her Majesty, was tasked with reading messages sent from British spies across the globe, narrowly avoided being killed by a V1 rocket, and had her London landlord arrested on suspicion of being a Nazi spy.

Despite her close regal connections the Hon Mrs Rhodes also revealed her aristocratic parents bolstered their rations by eating nettles which grew on their East Lothian estate.

Rhodes, who in 1990 was made a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order, said her entry into the world of military intelligence shortly after the outbreak of war was completely unexpected.

She recalled: “I wanted do my bit and went to join the Women’s Royal Naval Service, but found myself in MI6. It was dreadfully hush-hush and, for an impressionable 18-year-old, terribly mysterious.

“I reported each day to a disguised office near St James’s Park underground station. It was ‘Passport Control’ on the ground floor, but upstairs we were MI6.”

The teenager, who had spent her childhood summers playing with Princess Elizabeth at Balmoral, said the structure of the secret department closely mirrored that of the fictional Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) created by Ian Fleming.

She said: “The big chief, ‘M’ to James Bond fans, hid behind the letter ‘C’.

“He wrote in green ink and God-like powers were attributed to him by us underlings.

“One of my daily tasks was to read every single message transmitted by our spies all over the world. It was fascinating, but frightening too.”

Her position meant she was one of only a handful of people who had prior knowledge of Britain’s mission to end Hitler’s quest to create a nuclear bomb.

The 1943 operation where commandos blew up an experimental power plant in occupied Norway was later turned into a film, The Heroes of Telemark, starring Kirk Douglas.

She also passed on evidence about the Nazi’s V1 and V2 rocket systems before almost falling victim to their destructive capabilities.

Rhodes said: “One Sunday, in June 1944, I was on duty at ‘Passport Control’ and heard a V1 cut out.

“It sounded very nearly overhead and stupidly I craned my neck out of the window to see where it would fall. A rather crusty old colonel saw me as he was passing and rugby tackled me down on to the floor.”

The bomb detonated, barely 100 yards away and killed more than 100 people who had gathered at the Guard’s Chapel.

The wartime agent took her work seriously and even passed on her suspicions about the man who owned the Chelsea flat where she lodged.

She recalled: “Our landlord spoke with a heavy foreign accent and limped, although we once caught him running up the stairs.

“He was often away and we were convinced he was a spy, transmitting to Berlin.

“We even went as far as reporting him to MI5, although I never found out what happened to him.”

She returned to Scotland while on leave and discovered that strict austerity measures affected even the wealthiest and best connected of families.

“At Carberry I found my mother was supplementing the meagre rations with home-grown recipes.

“We ate stewed nettles both as vegetables and in a soup, melted-down rose hips and very old eggs, preserved in water glass (sodium silicate gel).”

After the war Rhodes left MI6 to work for the newly formed European Movement, whose members founded what would eventually become the European Union.

She served as woman of the bedchamber, a mixture of lady-in-waiting and companion, to her beloved aunt, and close confidante, the Queen Mother from 1991 until her death in 2002 .

The widow now lives in a grace-and-favour residence in Windsor Great Park, which was granted to her personally by her cousin.

She said: “I’m still active and go for a walk every day with my West Highland terrier.

“At home, the Queen drops in on me sometimes on Sundays and we exchange the latest news.

“No-one has taken my driving licence away and I still do the run up to Scotland by car.”

Miss Moneypenny was secretary to M, the head of SIS, but focused her attention on a flirtatious, though never consummated, relationship with 007.

She was brought to life on the big screen by actress Lois Maxwell.

n The Final Curtsey by Margaret Rhodes is published by Umbria Press.