A Suspicious Man

My grandmother started school after the Easter holidays in 1941 and one of the first things she was told was if anyone stopped her and asked where Sywell Aerodrome was, (this was a small airport between Kettering and Northampton) she must not tell them as they could be a German spy.

Around 1942-1943 a man came and knocked on the door of her family home, he said he was looking for some family members of his but had not been able to find them so her Dad asked him the name of the family he said that they had changed their name and he was not sure (being in a small village, Hannington, they knew everyone) so her Dad was very suspicious of him but he offered him a bed for the night as it was getting dark.

They had two rooms in the attic and her Mum made a bed for him in one of them. My grandmother remembered what she had been told at school so when the man started to ask questions about the area she lived in she pretended she did not know.

When the man had gone up to the room after dinner her Dad told her Mum how suspicious he was of him and he was going to go to see the Captain of the Home Guard and tell him. The Captain did not believe that he was a spy so the Captain did not come to see him.

What her Dad didn't know was the man had not gone right up to the room he had stayed on the stairs and listened to what her Dad was saying to her Mum so when they went to get him in the morning he had not slept in the bed he had climbed out the bedroom window onto the roof and escaped so that really confirmed that he was most likely a spy.