The Beret Spy is Back

The latest harvest from Emile, the Beret Spy. 

Spy-work from the Netherlands and Washington DC. 

Monkeys

Mosa Anderson

Mosa Anderson was associated with the Save the Children Fund for many years, serving as a member of its Council 1933-1967. In 1916, on her return from Paris where as an accomplished linguist she had been studying Russian, she was asked by Dorothy Buxton to assist in the production of the 'Cambridge Magazine' which ran articles translated from foreign newspapers. In this capacity she acted as a Russian language translator. After the foundation of the Save the Children Fund in 1919 she moved to Manchester to continue with 'Notes from the Foreign Press' which had been taken over by the 'Manchester Guardian', and continued presiding over the editorial work until the end of 1921. Mosa Anderson attended a SCF Summer School and an Esperanto Conference in Geneva in the 1920s. In 1923, then in London, she became secretary to Charles Roden Buxton, MP, husband of Dorothy Buxton, Eglantyne Jebb's sister, joining him in investigating the situation of German refugees in France in the 1930s.

During World War II she worked on the establishment of residential nurseries in Britain and later, in April 1946, she went to Poland to organise post-war relief work, spending some 11 months there. She later worked in Germany. 

Mosa Anderson was also a member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom; and was the author of several books including 'German and Europe's Future (National Peace Council, 1946), 'Noel Buxton: A Life' in 1952 (Noel Buxton was Dorothy Buxton's brother in law), and 'Henry Joseph Wilson: Fighter for Freedom' in 1953.

Louise Carson

Born in Montreal and raised in Hudson, Quebec,Louise Carson studied music in Montreal and Toronto, played jazz piano and sang in the chorus of the Canadian Opera Company. She has published seventeen books: three collections of poetry.

She's been shortlisted in FreeFall magazine's annual contest three times and won a Manitoba Magazine Award. She has presented her work in many public forums in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Saskatoon, Kingston and New York City. Carson lives with two cats in St-Lazare, Quebec, where she writes and either shovels snow or gardens, depending on the season.

Bridget's Beret

Bridget's Beret is a 2010 children's book by Tom Lichtenheld

Bridget loves to draw, and she likes to wear a beret for inspiration. So when her beloved hat blows away, Bridget searches for it high and low. She files a Missing Beret Report. She even considers other hats, but none of them feel quite right. It's no use; without her beret, Bridget can't seem to draw. How will she overcome her artist's block?

Me and the Colonel

Me and the Colonel is a 1958 American comedy film based on the play Jacobowsky und der Oberst by Franz Werfel. It was directed by Peter Glenville and stars Danny Kaye, Curd Jürgens, and Nicole Maurey.

Danny Kaye speaking to a man in a beret - scene from "Me and the Colonel

In Paris during the WW II invasion of France, Jewish refugee S. L. Jacobowsky seeks to leave the country before it falls. Meanwhile, Polish diplomat Dr. Szicki gives the antisemitic and autocratic Polish Colonel Prokoszny secret information that must be delivered to London by a certain date. The resourceful Jacobowsky, who has had to flee from the Nazis several times previously, manages to "buy" an automobile from the absent Baron Rothschild's chauffeur. Prokoszny peremptorily requisitions the car, but finds he must accept an unwelcome passenger when he discovers that Jacobowsky has had the foresight to secure gasoline. The ill-matched pair (coincidentally from the same village in Poland) and the colonel's orderly, Szabuniewicz, drive away.

José Mujica - RIP

Uruguay’s former president José Mujica, once a Marxist guerrilla, flower farmer and boinero-extraordinaire, whose radical brand of democracy, plain-spoken philosophy and simple lifestyle fascinated people around the world, has died yesterday, 14 May 2025. He was 89.

Mujica, widely known as “Pepe”, spent all of Uruguay’s 1973-1985 dictatorship in prison, where he was tortured and spent years in solitary confinement.

During his 2010-2015 presidency, Mujica oversaw the transformation of his small South American nation into one of the world’s most socially liberal democracies. He earned admiration at home and cult status abroad for legalizing marijuana and same-sex marriage, enacting the region’s first sweeping abortion rights law and establishing Uruguay as a leader in alternative energy.

He sparked global fascination by shunning the presidential palace to live in a tiny farmhouse and donating most of his salary to charity.

In his final interview, Mujica repeatedly answered interview questions with philosophical aphorisms.

“Life is a beautiful adventure and a miracle,” he said. “We are too focused on wealth and not on happiness. We are focused only on doing things and – before you know it – life has passed you by.”

Mujica had no children and is survived by his wife, Lucía Topolansky, another former militant.

Dermot Hayes

Like many activists and volunteers, Dermot Hayes is a force of nature.

He calls all his friends ‘Comrade’ and has been active for decades in youth work, community groups, LEADER projects, trade unions, worker co-ops, environmental causes, and disability rights.

Dermot lives in Ennis, Co. Clare, and is known for volunteering, advocating and campaigning for human rights, in particular with the Independent Living Movement in Ireland.

“I have been immersed in the local, national and international movement for over thirty years. During this time, I founded, co-founded and headed organisations to represent, campaign and progress rights for people with disabilities,” he says.

“My book explores and documents my life as a child growing up in Kells, Corofin, County Clare and through to my years as an activist and campaigner across many causes over seven decades,”.

Louis Espinassous

Louis Espinassous (1951) is an educator, biologist, ethnologist, novelist, storyteller and now a shepherd, working in nature education. He is known, among other things, for his books for children and his works on nature animation.

Louis Espinassous lives in the Ossau Valley in Béarn, the very heartlands of the béret. He worked for twenty years as a technical and educational advisor in Nature Education in the Pyrenees National Park.

During these years, he has been able to combine biological and ethnographic research while working with many audiences as a nature educator / mountain guide. He leads writing workshops to develop students' free expression. Furthermore, in the context of the COVID-19 health crisis, he suggested holding classes in nature, a solution for the deconfinement school. Espinassous advocates an education closer to nature, the latter disappearing in favour of "security, hygiene, asepsis of the living".

Doll from Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp

 A sinister post, detailing a rag doll of a male concentration camp prisoner. The clothing is made from real prisoner's clothing.

The doll was given to the donor's (to the IWM Collection) step-grandfather, Gwyn Jones (British soldier) by former prisoners after the liberation of Bergen-Belsen. 

Details of similar items made by liberated Belsen prisoners, and on occupational therapy at the camp in general.

They can be found in Letters from Belsen 1945: An Australian Nurse's Experiences with the Survivors of War by Muriel Knox Doherty, Judith Cornell, and R.Lynette Russell.

New Zealand Army berets #2

When Kayforce, the New Zealand military contribution to the Korean War, was mobilised, the khaki beret was reintroduced as the standard headdress for all of Kayforce.

KayForce khaki beret, Artillery

In 1955, the New Zealand Special Air Service was formed, and they adopted the British airborne maroon beret as their official headgear. Despite the British SAS adopting a beige sand-coloured beret in 1956, the NZSAS retained the maroon beret until 1986.

NZ SAS Beret

As a result of questions raised at the 29 November 1983 Army Dress Committee meeting on the design of berets, a study was initiated. This study resulted in a redesigned beret with less cloth in the crown and a cloth headband instead of the traditional leather headband.

NZ Regt/ RNZIR Rifle Green Beret

The New Zealand Army boldly moved on 16 August 1999 when CGS Major General Maurice Dodson issued a directive to adopt a “one army” beret. The directive aimed to create a sense of unity and pride among all soldiers and to simplify the number of coloured berets in the NZ Army. This resulted in the rifle green beret, previously reserved for the RNZSigs, becoming the standard beret for all officers and soldiers, except for the NZSAS, who retained their sand beret.

RNZMP Blue Beret

The transition to the “one army” beret was met with resistance, mirrored in 2001 when the United States Army moved to a “one army” beret for all soldiers, highlighting the powerful effect that symbols such as coloured berets can have on morale and unit pride.

New Zealand Army berets #1

Berets were first used as a headdress in the New Zealand military in 1938 when new uniforms for the Territorial forces were introduced, including a black beret for motorcyclists of the Light Machine Gun Platoons and dispatch riders.

Motorcyclists discontinued the black beret in February 1942 when the NZ Tank Brigade was granted permission to use the black beret as its official headdress.

Within the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force (2NZEF), The Divisional Cavalry in Egypt was the first to adopt the black beret. Later, black berets were issued to most of the 4th New Zealand Armoured Brigade personnel in November 1942. A year later, soldiers serving in the 22 Battalion in Italy were issued a khaki beret to replace their field service cap.

In the years following World War II, the New Zealand Army expanded the use of berets to various units. However, the reintroduction of the traditional lemon squeezer as the official headdress of the New Zealand Army in February 1949 marked the end of the widespread use of berets by the NZ Army, with only the RNZAC, NZWRAC, and RNZANS authorized to use the beret as their headdress.

Kiki

The story of Kiki the Truffle Pig.

Rural life, traditions, local produce, and the heritage of 1980s France, with the voice of André Dussolier.

You’ll hear the leaves crunching, your nose smelling the undergrowth and the black pearl, your eyes embracing this natural world... 

Hermione Burton

Hermione Burton (1925) was a Bedford based who painted her whole life but only exhibited twice.

Living with her American husband in the US, she became one of the first patients in the country to undergo what was then experimental open-heart surgery. Hermione survived, and it was during her recovery that she attended occupational therapy classes and began to paint in oils. These early compositions depicted the major events of her life and often included herself and her immediate family.

According to Hermione, it was Tom Jones singing Green Green Grass of Home on TV which prompted her to divorce her husband and leave America. She returned home to Aylesbury, and within six years had met and married her third husband, Frank Burton. The couple moved to Bedford in 1979, where she began to promote her paintings and portraits locally.

Hermione’s work was discovered by chance in a charity shop by Andy Holden and the remainder of her oeuvre was steadily tracked down, acquired and restored over the course of the next year.