|
News of John Leatham's death in Ocober 2003 reached Ampleforth only almost four years later, on 7 August 2007 when his daughter Alice Wotherspoon rang the Ampleforth Society from Inverness-shire. Talking with her, we discovered a life of much character, richness and variety: head of the BBC World Service Greek language broadcasts, military service, leading an archeological underwater survey, a farmer, a political candidate in two general elections, involvement in clandestine operations in Albania.
John Leatham had been in St Aidan's House leaving in 1942.
On leaving Ampleforth he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Service (RNVR) between 1942 and 1946. [The RNVR, a reserve of civilian volunteers founded in 1903, was in 1958 merged with the Royal Naval Reserve to become the present Royal Naval Reserve]. He became a lieutenant (Temporary) in the RNVR, and his wartime service included wartime liason duties with the Royal Hellenic Navy. He was promoted MBE.
In 1946 and 1947, John Leatham was Civil Affairs Officer, British Military Administration, Dodecanese Islands.
In 1949 and 1950, John Leatham worked for MI6, and was involved in clandestine operations against the Hoxha regime in Communist Albania.
By 1949 the United States and British intelligence organizations were working with King Zog and the mountainmen of his personal guard. They recruited Albanian refugees and émigrés from Egypt, Italy, and Greece; trained them in Cyprus, Malta, and the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany); and infiltrated them into Albania. Guerrilla units entered Albania in 1950 and 1952, but Albanian security forces killed or captured all of them. Kim Philby, a Soviet double agent working as a liaison officer between the British intelligence service and the United States Central Intelligence Agency, had leaked details of the infiltration plan to Moscow, and the security breach claimed the lives of about 300 infiltrators
Between 1951 and 1955 he was resident in Greece, working in journalism, broadcasting and writing. In 1955 he led an archeological underwater survey of Crete.
Between October 1955 and December 1956 he went to Clare College, Cambridge, on a county award, doing a degree course in History, interrupted after four terms.
In 1957 he was appointed head of the Greek-language service of the BBC World Servive. He held this position until 1961.
For the 10 years between 1961 and 1970 he farmed in Buckinghamshire. He combined this with lecturinbg, broadcasting, writing, work for the National Farmers Union, for the local school, and other committee work.
He was the Conservative candidate in two general elections. In the October 1964 election at Loughborough in Leicestershire he gained 17,671 votes, 38.16% of the vote, in a three way vote. In the March 1966 general election at Wellingborough in Northamptoshire, in a straight two-party vote, he gained 22,472 votes or 47.63%, the Labour candidate winning with a majority of just 2,233.
From 1969 onwards he lived in Greece. Until about 1990 he was a business consultant and representative of foreign companies, and a company director. By the late 1980s, he wasincreasingly occupied as a writer, translator, reviewer. He became Consultant to the President of the American College of Greece in Athens. He was an Honorary Member of the Anglo-Hellenic League. In about 1969-70 he knew a future Ampleforth monk, now Fr Colin Battell, Prior of Ampleforth.
He married Maureen and they had three daughters. He died on 10 October 2003.
OA Deaths 2003
Home
|
Deaths
