Re: THE SECRET LIFE OF ARTHUR RANSOME - BBC2


Posted by Ptomaselli@compuserve.com on October 19, 2005 at 21:11:29 user Phil_T.

In Reply to: Re: THE SECRET LIFE OF ARTHUR RANSOME - BBC2 posted by Phil Tomaselli on October 12, 2005 at 21:16:20:

Having watched the video of the recent BBC2 programme kindly supplied by a friend (many thanks to the BBC journalist who quite happily picked my brains, promised a CD of the programme and was too lazy and incompetent or malicious, to actually provide one)I have to say I was modestly impressed.

Ransome's motives for being involved with both sides remain debatable. I rather like the thought that he was an independent caught up in a difficult situation who did his level best to find an objective truth. Unfortunately his connections with British Secret Service Agents such as Ernest Boyce, Major Scale, Prof Cotter and Augustus Agar, as well as mentions in the files about Evgenia working as an agent for the British Foreign Office in 1917/18 strongly suggest a much stronger set of links with "our" Secret Service than the people responsible for the programme could admit.

Perhaps they should have done more research, asked more questions and tried to understand the answers they were given. Or perhaps I'm just bitter and twisted.....

On the whole though I thought it was a reasonable programme and the actor who played the yoiung Ransome had an A1 moustache, in spite of adverse comments in the media.

Phil Tomaselli


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