EMBLAZONED in red letters on public display posters, the saying “Tittle tattle lost the battle” became one of the defining warnings to Brits during the Second World War.
Picturing two sailors passing the time of day while Adolf Hitler eavesdrops on their conversation, the poster projected a stern and indisputable message: it doesn’t matter what you’re talking about – anyone could be listening.
Some may have assumed it outlandish that a German spy could be living next door or working in the factory down the road, but in Colchester during the Second World War, that is exactly what happened.
Her name has never been revealed publicly, but the story of the German spy who went undercover in Colchester is one worth telling.
When she moved to the town in the early part of the war, she had her story straight – Hitler had driven her and her husband out of Nazi Germany, and they had settled in Britain in the hope they could they avoid persecution and make a life for themselves.
Or so she said.
Her skill as a machinist in the clothing factory in Darkhouse Lane, Rowhedge, was the first thing to catch the eyes of her colleagues.
Her open disdain for Hitler caught the attention of workers, too.
But for Jean Barrett – who was interviewed by the Daily Mail in 2003 about her experience in the war effort – it was the woman’s fastidious note-taking that really caught her eye.
She said: “She was a marvellous machinist, and very meticulous – if she did a seam wrong, she would unpick it and redo it.
“There was no reason to think there was anything odd about her.
“But I didn’t trust her. She kept writing things in a little notepad. When I asked what she was doing, she claimed she was writing down how many pairs of trousers she had made a day. That was bizarre. We only ever managed one pair a day because of the fiddly nature of the work.
"When I mentioned my suspicions to my manager, she just dismissed me as over-sensitive, and my friends just laughed at me.”
That, as far as Mrs Barrett – or Miss Carter as she was then known – was concerned, was that.
But her suspicions were well-placed.
After leaving the factory to join the Women's Auxiliary Air Force as a radio operator, Mrs Barrett received a letter from a friend telling her the woman who had taken such meticulous notes, and had been so outspokenly anti-Hitler, was in fact working for the Führer himself.
The woman and her husband were spies, and were discovered with hundreds of maps which had marked out shipyards and barracks in Colchester and the surrounding area.
How she was uncovered, and how many British lives her actions could have cost if she been allowed to continue undetected, will never be known.
What can be said with some degree of certainty is that the dismissive attitude could have been far more costly.
Mrs Barrett’s daughter, Vicky Stopford, said the tale of the German spy was one of the few stories her mother told her from the war.
Her father, who served in west Africa, was similarly reserved.
Speaking to The Gazette from her home in Bradfield, Mrs Stopford said her mum – along with 8,000 other women who played a key role in the war effort – were honoured with a 22ft bronze sculpture unveiled in Whitehall in 2005.
She said: “The tip I have is… always ask your parents questions, because when they’re gone, you can’t ask any more.
“Mum and dad never spoke about the war – only the good bits.
“They never say how horrible it was – they never told me the horrible bits.
“But the tale of the German spy was a bit mum could relate to.”
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