Oleg Gordievsky, Renee Goddard, Professor Richard Fortey, Sofia Gubaidulina

·28 min·2 clips

How did a KGB double agent use a Safeway bag near Red Square to trigger a daring MI6 escape operation?

The episode opens with the story of Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB officer who became a double agent for British intelligence. Professor Christopher Andrew describes Gordievsky's elaborate escape plan from Moscow in 1985, involving a signal with a Safeway bag and escape in the boot of an MI6 car. Gordievsky's background is explored: born in 1938, his father was in the NKVD, and he joined the KGB for travel and information. He was alienated by the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. His intelligence work in Britain revealed Soviet paranoia about a Western nuclear first strike, influencing diplomacy. He briefed both Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev before their 1984 meeting. The episode then shifts to Renée Goddard, born in 1923 to a Jewish Communist family in Berlin. Her daughter Leonie Mellinger recounts how Goddard was sent to her grandparents, then to England as a refugee at age 10 after her father's arrest. At 17, she was interned in Britain, sent to Holloway Prison and then an Isle of Man camp, where she learned her father was murdered in Buchenwald. Despite this, she felt safe in England. She later became an actress with the Laurence Olivier Company and a TV commissioning executive, proud of discovering talent for shows like Emergency Ward 10. Her mantra was 'Be happy and be helpful.' Next, Professor Richard Fortey, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum, is remembered. Bill Bryson describes him as unassuming and likeable. Dr Greg Edgecombe notes Fortey's passion for nature and trilobites. Fortey's pivotal moment was finding a trilobite fossil at age 14 on the Welsh coast. He became an expert on trilobite evolution and lifestyles, and a popular science writer with books like 'Trilobite' and 'The Earth: An Unauthorized Biography.' After retirement, he studied biodiversity in his own woodland. Finally, Sofia Gubaidulina, an avant-garde composer, is profiled. Gerard McBurney describes her laugh and spiritual focus. She was blacklisted in 1979 for religious music but was somewhat protected because Soviet authorities 'didn't take women seriously.' Her breakthrough came when violinist Gidon Kremer commissioned a concerto, 'Offertorium.' Her notable works include 'The Wrath of God' and a setting of St John's Gospel. The episode also briefly mentions DJ Andy Peebles and ceramic artist Carol McNichol.

As heard by us

Four lives, from a KGB escape to a composer's spiritual testament.

Last Word brings together four lives marked by pressure, exile, art, and inquiry. Oleg Gordievsky's escape gives the programme its sharpest story, with Professor Christopher Andrew tracing how Operation Pimlico turned on a meeting near Red Square and a plastic bag, after…

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Press play when a KGB escape plan and a composer's dramatic religious music sound like good company.

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