Product details
- ISBN 9781408867860
- Weight: 280g
- Dimensions: 128 x 196mm
- Publication Date: 03 Nov 2016
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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Soldier, Spy is the astonishing memoir of one ordinary man and soldier, Victor Gregg, as he resumes civilian life after the Second World War. As for so many others, picking up where he had left off proved far from simple for Gregg; he had fought many battles, lost many friends and been deeply damaged psychologically by his experiences as a prisoner of war in Dresden.
To escape the memories and the emotional trauma, he moved from one job and distraction to the next: from immersing himself in the adrenaline-fuelled competitive cycling to working as a long distance lorry driver, from becoming a Communist Party member to becoming a spy and, by his seventieth birthday, helping bring about the fall of the Berlin Wall.
This honest and gritty account is the third book in a remarkable trilogy that both explores the permanent and damaging consequences of a life at war and tells the story of one ordinary man who went on to lead the most extraordinary life.
Victor Gregg was born in London in 1919 and joined the army in 1937, serving first in the Rifle Brigade in Palestine and North Africa, notably at the Battle of Alamein, and then with the Parachute Regiment, at the Battle of Arnhem. As a prisoner of war he survived the bombing of Dresden to be repatriated in 1946. The story of his adult years, Rifleman, was published by Bloomsbury in 2011, and the prequel, King’s Cross Kid, in 2013. Both were co-written with Rick Stroud. Victor Gregg died in 2021, aged 102.
Rick Stroud is a writer and film director. As well as working with Victor Gregg on Rifleman and King’s Cross he is the author of The Book of the Moon, The Phantom Army of Alamein and, most recently, Kidnap in Crete. He lives in London.
