The Nurse Who Became a Spy

Madge Addy's War Against Fascism

Chris Hall

• Publisher: Pen and Sword History
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781526779595
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

The life story of Madge Addy, a working-class Manchester woman who volunteered to fight Fascism and Nazism in two major wars, is a truly remarkable one. Madge left her job and her husband to serve in the Spanish Civil War as a nurse with the Republican medical services. In Spain she was wounded in a bombing raid, fell in love with another foreign volunteer who became her second husband, was made a Prisoner of War and was the last British nurse to leave Spain, witnessing the horrors of Franco’s Fascist regime before she left. She was caught up in the ‘Fall of France’ and lived in Marseille with her Norwegian husband. From 1940 to 1944 Madge was first an amateur resister and later a full-time secret agent, working with the likes of Ian Garrow, Pat O’Leary and Guido Zembsch-Schreve. She also acted as a courier, flying to Lisbon to deliver and receive secret messages from British intelligence. She also became romantically involved with a Danish secret agent and married him after the war. Madge’s wartime achievements were recognised by the British with the award of an OBE and by the French with the award of the Croix de Guerre. Chris Hall brings Madge’s story to life using archive material and photographs from Britain, France, Spain and Norway. Madge’s Spanish Civil War experiences are vividly described in a mass of letters she wrote requesting medical aid and describing the harrowing conditions at her wartime hospital. Her activities in the Second World War show a woman with ‘nerves of steel’ and a bravery at times bordering on recklessness. As she herself said, ‘I believe in taking the war into the enemy camp’.

Chapter 1

Manchester Days: Early Life 1904–1937

In was a pleasant spring day in 1937 and two young boys were excited to be visiting their Aunty Daisy. She had promised that she would take them to an exciting open-air meeting to do with the war in Spain, which was in all the newspapers and appearing in newsreels at the local cinema. Robert and Geoffrey were dropped off by their father, Francis (Frank) Addy, at 34 Manchester Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, in Manchester. Aunty Daisy was Francis’ younger sister, Marguerite, a married woman in her early thirties. The three of them left 34 Manchester Road. As they walked along, they could see across the road the local cinema and a billiard hall, and, as they crossed the road, they passed the Chorlton public library. Aunty Daisy took them past their junior school, Oswald Road, and then they turned right to walk from Chorlton-cum-Hardy towards Stretford, the home of Lancashire County Cricket Club and Manchester United football club. As they walked towards the meeting, they passed a mass of newly- built houses and finally arrived at their destination at Greatstone Road.

Here, a few hundred people had gathered in the open area surrounded by roads with new houses and a small branch public library on one side, and shops and a new large public house with mock Tudor decoration on the other. The boys were very excited as they and their aunt joined the waiting crowd. There were people selling newspapers and pamphlets, and some had banners with ‘Arms for Spain’ crudely written on a bedsheet between two poles. Other people went around collecting money in tins for the relief of the victims of war in government-controlled Spain and for medical aid. The meeting was brought to order and individuals from various organisations addressed the crowd. All the speakers had differing messages, from a local clergyman wishing for a peaceful solution, to a local Communist activist demanding that the British government sell arms to the Spanish Republican government. All the speakers, though, implored the crowd to give generously to support Republican Spain, and especially to give for humanitarian aid. A small group of people wearing little badges with a flash insignia did not stay quiet, and heckled the Communist speaker. They were the local Fascists and members of the British Union of Fascists, followers of the charismatic Sir Oswald Mosley.1 The boys did not really understand what had gone on or what the speakers were saying, but they noticed on the way home that Aunty Daisy was much quieter than normal and deep in thought after the ‘Aid Spain’ meeting.

This and other ‘Aid Spain’ meetings attended by Madge Addy were part of the first steps that would change her life for ever. Up to this point Madge had led a conventional life; this was to change dramatically during a truly remarkable seven to eight-year period.

Madge’s father was Frederick William Addy. He was born in Macclesfield in Cheshire in 1857; his father was born in Ireland and by occupation was a silk dyer. Frederick Addy’s occupation was as a reed maker and finisher, a highly skilled profession a little like a modern precision instrument maker. Reed makers were an essential part of the cotton and textile industry, and their skill was needed to make the looms work effectively. By 1891 he and the family had moved to Bingley in Yorkshire, where he continued doing his skilled work. By 1901, he was living in Bolton as a boarder with his 11-year-old son Henry, still working as a reed maker. It is not known why he and his son were living separately from the rest of the family; it was possibly necessary in order to find skilled work. The rest of the family were living in Great Harwood near Blackburn in Lancashire. Frederick had married Madge’s mother, Mary Costello, in Macclesfield in 1882.2

Like her husband, Mary Costello was born in Macclesfield in 1866. She was a dressmaker, which was a highly skilled job that could be done from home, but often involved long hours of toil, and intricate and painstaking work for often very low pay. It is possible that Mary had strong political views – there is a family story that she was known as ‘Red Mary’ for her extreme left-wing views. Maybe her mother’s views were to have a significant impact on Madge’s personal development and later strong anti-Fascist opinions and actions. Frederick William Addy died around 1909–1910, as in the census of 1911 Mary is recorded as a widow and the youngest child is aged 2. In a nursing report on Madge in 1929, her father is recorded as deceased. Mary Addy was effectively a single mother for most of Madge’s childhood and was not to live to see Madge married, dying in 1924 in Manchester.3

The family had lived for a time in Yorkshire, so it is possible that the family members developed a Yorkshire accent during this time. Although she never lived in Yorkshire herself, Madge’s accent may have sounded like the other members of the family, so that when she is mentioned during the Second World War the writers believed she was from Yorkshire. However, this could just as equally be the writers supposing that, because Madge had a northern accent, she was from Yorkshire. Since she spent all her life in Manchester and Salford before going to Spain, it is most likely that she had a Mancunian accent.4

There is a family tradition that the Addy family was linked to the famous Mark Addy. Mark Addy was born in Salford in 1838, and was a boatman, skilled oarsman and innkeeper. During his life he rescued over fifty people from the River Irwell. His first rescue was when he was aged 13 and he could not even swim; he later became a proficient swimmer. Mark Addy became a licensee of a public house called the Old Boathouse, located on the side of the Irwell river. In 1878 he was given 200 guineas by the people of Salford for his rescuing exploits and was thanked publicly by the mayor. His bravery was recognised nationally, and Queen Victoria presented him with the then highest award for civilian bravery, the Albert Medal. But his rescues from the river ultimately led to his death in 1890, when he swallowed water from the heavily polluted Irwell and developed tuberculosis. After his death, the people of Salford erected a large 4m-high memorial in his honour in Weaste Cemetery. A public house on the River Irwell bore his name for many years. There is no definitive link between Mark Addy and Madge’s family, but Madge’s future actions showed enormous courage which just maybe was inherited from this very distant relative.5

Marguerite Nuttall Addy was born on 16 February 1904; throughout her life she was known as Madge. Like most children at that time she was born at home, which was 13 Moreton Street in the registration district of Chorlton-upon-Medlock in south Manchester. Madge was the sixth child of Frederick William and Mary Addy, and the second girl. She had five older siblings; the eldest being Joseph, followed by Florence, Henry, Thomas and Francis. Madge would later have a younger brother called Edward. The religion of the family was Roman Catholic,although it was by no means strictly enforced, since in adulthood Madge had no religious beliefs. By 1911, the family had moved to Rusholme in Manchester and Mary, now a widow, lived with all her children except for 21-year-old Henry. The family was living at 58 Rusholme Grove in Rusholme, close to the city centre of Manchester.6

Rusholme started off as a separate village in the parish of Manchester. Its name described its early features of mossy land with reedy pools of water. In 1655 there were a mere fourteen ratepayers in Rusholme; by 1801 there were over 700 people in the village. In the 1870s many new houses were built there, which attracted both working-class and middle-class families. In 1885 Rusholme became part of the city of Manchester. This led to dramatic improvements in the state of its roads, street lighting, the introduction of three large municipal parks (Birch Fields, Platt Fields and Whitworth Park), and a public library. By the time that Madge was living in Rusholme in 1914, its population had grown to 20,000. The pre-Great War Rusholme in which Madge spent her childhood was a busy and bustling suburb of the city of Manchester, with many shops, a theatre, a tram service to and from the city centre, and parks with boating lakes and a paddling pool, which she almost certainly would have visited.7

Madge’s eldest brother, Joseph, was born in Macclesfield and by 1911 he was working in Manchester as an iron turner, which was a metal machinist. Florence, Madge’s only sister, was born in Bingley and at the 1911 census she was recorded as working as a dressmaker like her mother, although later she became a midwife. Her family name was Florrie. When Madge married for the first time her mother was no longer alive, and Florence was one of the two witnesses who signed the marriage certificate. After the Second World War, Florence made several trips to Canada to help chaperone war brides on the journey by sea from Britain to Canada. It seems that both Addy sisters had a desire to help people less fortunate than themselves, coupled with a wanderlust. Henry Addy was born in Bingley and was boarding with his father in Bolton in 1901. He was probably living with his father in order to learn the reed-making trade, and he may have stayed working in the cotton industry in Lancashire. He is the forgotten member of the Addy family; her nephews remember only four brothers and two sisters.8

Two more of Madge’s brothers were born in Great Harwood near Blackburn; Thomas and Francis, or Frank, as he was called by the family.In the 1930s Thomas lived just two doors away from Madge in Chorlton-cum-Hardy in Manchester, renting the house with his younger brother, James Edward, and two women. By 1938–1939 they were still living together at 50 Nell Lane in Chorlton, which Madge used as a correspondence address when she was serving as a nurse in Spain. Frank Addy was the father of Madge’s two nephews, Robert Francis and Geoffrey Michael, and was married to a woman called Mabel. During the Great War he served in the Royal Flying Corps. His profession was an engineer and he worked at local firms Metro Vickers and Ford. Like many of the family in the 1930s he also lived in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, at 13 Vincent Avenue. Madge’s younger brother, Edward, was born in Manchester. He was referred to as James Edward, and as we have seen lived in Chorlton-cum-Hardy in the 1930s with his elder brother, Thomas. It was this younger brother who was named as the executor of Madge’s will, which she organised before returning to Spain in early 1938.9

After living in Rusholme, the family moved to Moss Side, another inner-city suburb of Manchester. Here, Madge attended the Princess Road school and made the decision to become a nurse. She began her training in January 1923 at Salford Union Infirmary, which was known as Hope Hospital. The hospital began as a Poor Law infirmary; its role was to take the pressure off the local workhouse by looking after the destitute infirm and sick. For most of Madge’s training there, her patients would have been these destitute, sick people. The hospital foundation stone was laid in March 1880 and it was formally opened in October 1882 with capacity for 1,000 patients. It was named Hope Hospital to hide its link to the workhouse. Widows were used to clean the hospital and they were paid a small wage, and a bath man was employed to bathe the patients once a week. Facilities were quite spartan and, although it had an operating theatre, few operations ever took place. Leadership was provided by a medical superintendent, a matron, a chaplain and a dispenser. Nurses were paid £5 a year and had to purchase their own medical instruments. A typical day for a nurse involved reporting at the hospital at 5.45 am and going on duty at 6.30 am. There were stories of a woman in a white robe haunting the hospital at night, who went around offering and giving help to patients. A night sister may have been one of the first pioneers in perfecting the art of ‘being on call’. The hospital had one perfectly straight main corridor with wards on either side; the night sister would place an oil lamp in the corridor outside the ward she was attending so that lamp was easily spotted anywhere along the corridor. This made it easy for other staff to find her. By the time the Great War was taking place, nurses’ wages had increased to £40 a year with an additional wartime bonus food ration. Besides continuing to look after destitute sick and infirm patients, the hospital also accommodated and cared for wounded soldiers returning from France. In 1925, Hope Hospital became a general infirmary, looking after the local residents as well as the destitute. This led to a dramatic increase in the number of operations (500) and births (366) at the hospital per year. Madge was doing her nurse training during these big changes at Hope Hospital and left the hospital as a trained nurse in February 1926.10

During her first Christmas at the hospital, Madge took part in two revues to entertain the staff and patients on 25 and 29 December 1923, and was pictured with other trainee nurses in costume surrounding a rather austere senior nurse known as Miss Hayes. She sent a postcard of the picture to the family, signed Daisy, which was what the family called her. Madge’s first job after leaving Hope Hospital saw her working at a private nursing home at York Place in Manchester from April to July 1926. Later, in 1929, she worked as a private nurse in the Whalley Range area of Manchester. In April 1927 she gained her district nursing qualifications after attending lectures at the Manchester and Salford District Health Authority from September 1926 to March 1927. Madge attended the compulsory lectures plus optional ones on tuberculosis and ophthalmia. In her end exam she scored forty-six out of sixty. The superintendent called Madge ‘a good and well-trained nurse’ and the inspector stated: ‘a good nurse, has adapted herself well to district work’. Under ‘Other Qualifications and Remarks’ the report lists cycling and motor cycling; knowing Madge’s future activities, this comes as no surprise. Being a motor cyclist was not something many young women would have accomplished in the 1920s! Madge almost certainly would have utilised her cycling skills while carrying out Resistance activities in the Second World War. Throughout the period 1927–1931 Madge was a State Registered Nurse, with registration number 42223. It is hard to tell whether she worked as a district nurse from 1927–1929, or whether she left the nursing profession for a time, returning to it again in January 1929. As a volunteer nurse in Spain, Madge worked as a masseuse, general nurse, in the X-ray department and as a theatre nurse.She learned many new things in Spain as medicine took major steps forward during the Civil War. But her training at Hope Hospital and as a district nurse provided the foundation of Madge’s effectiveness as a nurse in Spain. During Madge’s medical training she worked as a theatre nurse and learned to be a masseuse besides doing general nursing.11

In the late 1920s Madge was living at 33 Ruskin Avenue in Moss Side. Living next door to her at number 31 was an older man called Arthur Wilson Lightfoot. His father’s occupation was a joiner, a little like a carpenter but a less skilled occupation. Arthur himself was an electrician by trade; in time he became Madge’s boyfriend, and eventually her first husband. They were married at a Registry Office in the district of south Manchester on 26 March 1930. Arthur was 29 years old and Madge 26. They left Moss Side in 1932 and moved to Chorlton-cum-Hardy, where they lived at 34 Manchester Road, along with two lodgers who lived with them at different times up to 1937. They were Barbara and Gwyneth Jackson. From 34 Manchester Road Madge ran a chiropody practice and possibly also did some work as a trained masseuse. From the same address, an ‘Arthur Lightfoot’ ran a joiner’s business. Madge’s father- in-law was a joiner, so perhaps he used his son’s house as a business address. Alternatively, Madge’s husband Arthur could have been running a joinery business with skills he learned from his father, even though he was an electrician by trade, and not a joiner. In 1939 Arthur was working as an electrician, so maybe the joinery business was a way of earning a little extra money on the side. The marriage was childless, and the two of them seem to have grown apart and eventually divorced; this decline in their relationship may have been a factor leading to Madge’s decision to volunteer to serve as a nurse in Spain. In 1939 Arthur Lightfoot was living with his mother at 83 Ruskin Ave in Moss Side and working as an electrician for the Manchester Corporation.12

Chorlton-cum-Hardy, where Madge lived in the 1930s before she left for Spain, was a rapidly-growing south Manchester suburb. Its name may be derived from the Anglo-Saxon, meaning ‘Ceorlfrith’s settlement at Hearda’s Island’. Chorlton and Hardy were two separate communities and the change of name to Chorlton-cum-Hardy may have been brought about purely to distinguish it from Chorlton-on-Medlock. Chorlton was part of the medieval manor of Withington and was a small settlement which grew very slowly from 1640 to 1851; the population only increased from 85 to just over 750. Chorlton-cum-Hardy expanded greatly in the nineteenth century with the improvement in communications. The building of Wilbraham Road linked Chorlton with its neighbouring district, Fallowfield, but the biggest factor in Chorlton’s growth was the opening of a railway station in 1880. Chorlton, which had always been based around an area known as the ‘Green’, now centred on a crossroads at the convergence of two major roads, one of which was Wilbraham...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Illustrations
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Manchester Days: Early Life 1904–1937
• Chapter 2 A War Far Away: Spanish Civil War 1936–1939
• Chapter 3 From Apathy to Direct Action: British Responses to the Spanish Civil War
• Chapter 4 Humanitarian Aid for Republican Spain: British Medical Volunteers
• Chapter 5 Head Nurse at Uclés: Madge in Spain 1937–1939
• Chapter 6 Europe 1933–1940: Spanish Republican Exiles, Events Leading to War and the Second World War to the Fall of France
• Chapter 7 France 1940–1944: Vichy, the Resistance and British Support
• Chapter 8 Resisting Fascism Again: Madge, Wilhelm and Thorkild: France 1940–1944
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Illustration Sources
• Plate Section