SUSPECTED SPIES

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21574, 9 February 1940, Page 2

SUSPECTED SPIES

THREE actresses LONDON. January 12. Three young actresses, who went shopping in a town in the B.E.F. zone, were arrested on suspicion of being spies—because they wore men’s trousers.

They were Miss Betty Bucknell, principal boy, Miss Freda Pettett and Miss Ann Angela, of an Aladdin company. which is in France giving shows to the troops and airmen. They were with two male members of the company when two plain clothes police officers asked them to go to police headquarters. When the young women asked the reason they were told: “You are wearing disguise, and we think you are spies.” No amount of arguing on the spot did any good, and the five artists accompanied the detectives.

An hour later, after the services of an official interpreter had been obtained, the police chief accepted the explanation of the suspects. He offered them wine and sent them back to their hotel. The actresses were told that it constituted a suspicious act for young women to wear men’s trousers in provincial towns. Disguise in Long Trousers Miss Bucknell’s statement runs: “I was walking to the theatre with Atm Angela and Freda Pettett in a village behind the line, when two French detectives stopped us and asked for our passports. Ann Angela, who speaks French well, was not satisfied that the men were genuine. She asked to see their papers. That didn’t help much. Anyway, we refused to hand our passports over. They are very precious to people like us in the war zone. We even sleep with them under our pillows. Then a British officer came along. He thought it best that we should do as the detectives suggested, and go to the police station.

“There an interpreter quickly put matters right. There were apologies, and we shook hands all round.

“We found that some local people had told the police about us, and said we must be spies or we wouldn’t be trying to disguise ourselves in long trousers.”