Ronald Seth

Ronald Seth (1911-1985) was educated in Ely and Cambridge. On completing his MA, he went to Tallin University, Estonia, where he held the English Language chair and completed his Ph.D in 1939. When war broke out, he founded the BBC Monitoring Service and was then seconded to Special Operations Executive. He was assigned the task of working covertly in Estonia to organise resistance against the Nazis. Betrayed and captured, he endured solitary confinement for almost two years but, during that time, persuaded his captors he was a Nazi sympathiser. He joined Luftwaffe Intelligence, exposed constantly to the danger of losing the trust of Nazi officials. Smuggled into Paris in 1944, he was taken back to Germany with the retreating SS, from where he eventually escaped. After the war, he was employed by the Ministry of Works, became a school teacher for a time, and eventually devoted himself to a writing career.