Janet Coggin
Janet Coggin | |
|---|---|
| Born | 3 April 1836 Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England |
| Died | 23 September 2010 (aged 74) West Linton, Scotland |
| Occupation | |
Janet Coggin (3 April 1936 – 23 September 2010) was a British novelist and memoirist.
Early life
[edit]Coggin was born in Cambridge in 1936 to Maurice Coggin and his wife Eleanora (née Illeris).[1] Her mother was a member of the SOE during WWII.[2] Her aunt, Joan Coggin, was a detective and children's novelist in the 1940s.[3]
Coggin grew up in Totnes. Her parents divorced, and in 1949 her mother remarried, to Maj Franklin Lushington. In 1964 Col (as he was by then) Lushington was killed in a car accident; Eleanora Lushington died later the same year at their home in Spain.[4] Brought up by her pacifist father, Coggin attended the progressive Dartington Hall School.
In the late 1950s, Coggin met a South African naval officer, Dieter Gerhardt, at a wedding in Devon.[5] In 1957 they were married.[6] They had three children.[5]
In 1966, after eight years of marriage, Gerhardt took her aside and informed her that he was a KGB spy and, indeed, had been one since before they had met.[7] She immediately ended the marriage, and returned to Europe on the next available passage, with her three children. [7] She then lived in Ireland for some years, terrified of being murdered by the KGB.[7] She rented a flat in the Crosthwaite Park area in Dún Laoghaire, working in a variety of jobs to make ends meet. [7] She subsequently taught English in Greece and, returning to Ireland, worked in the Camphill Community, a training college for children with learning difficulties in Naas.[7][5]
In 1983 Gerhardt and his second wife were arrested, and subsequently imprisoned for treason.[7]
Literary career
[edit]Her literary output consisted of four novels and two memoirs, most notably a lightly-fictionalised account of her marriage to a KGB spy, The Spy's Wife.
List of works
[edit]Novels
[edit]- The Leaving (1988: Robert Hale).[8]
- The Bread Man (1989: Robert Hale).[9]
- McElhinney (1989: Robert Hale).
- Northside (1990: Robert Hale).[10]
Memoirs
[edit]- The Spy's Wife (1998: Constable).[11]
- High Tide and the Heron Dived: A Totnes Childhood (2012: Folly Island Press).
Personal life
[edit]Her second husband was Costas Balis, who died in 2004. She died in West Linton, in Scotland, in 2010, aged 74.[12]
References
[edit]- ^ General Records Office, 1936, 2nd quarter, Cambridge Registry District, Vol 3B, p 600.
- ^ "National Archives: Eleanora Coggin". Retrieved 31 October 2024.
- ^ "Death of Miss Joan Coggin", Eastbourne Gazette, 20 August 1980, p 2.
- ^ England & Wales Probate Register, 1965, p 974.
- ^ a b c Johnston, Jenny, "Married to a KGB Spy", Daily Mirror, 17 April 1999, p 32.
- ^ General Records Office, 1957, 4th quarter, Plymouth Registry District, Vol 7A, p 1179.
- ^ a b c d e f "" 'Hi Honey, I'm a Spy' ", The Irish Times, 18 March 1999". The Irish Times. Retrieved 11 November 2024.
- ^ The Bookseller, 12 February 1988, p 408.
- ^ The Bookseller, 10 February 1989, p 420.
- ^ The Bookseller, 9 February 1990, p 424.
- ^ The Bookseller, 18 September 1998, p 112.
- ^ Scotland, Civil Deaths and Burials, 2010.