Ronald Seth (1911-1985) went to school in Ely. After studying at Cambridge, he went to Tallin University, Estonia, where he held the English Language chair and was awarded an honorary Ph.D in 1939. When war broke out, he helped found the BBC Monitoring Service and was then seconded to Special Operations Executive. He was assigned the task of working covertly in Estonia to organise resistance against the Nazis. Betrayed and captured, he endured solitary confinement for almost two years but, during that time, persuaded his captors he was a Nazi sympathiser and joined Luftwaffe Intelligence. Smuggled into Paris in 1944, he was taken back to Germany with the retreating SS, from where he eventually escaped. After the war, he was employed by the Ministry of Works, became a school teacher for a time, and eventually devoted himself to a writing career.