The Secret Service Couple: Alex and Gretl Thompson
A remarkable true story of family, war, secrets, and the search for identity.

For most of his life, Denis Thompson knew very little about his parents' past. His Austrian-born mother, Gretl, and his English father, Alex, rarely spoke about their lives before, during, and after the Second World War. Bound by secrecy and reluctant to discuss the past, they left behind more questions than answers.

Everything changed when family documents, photographs, and a secret file came into the author's possession. What began as a personal search for the truth became a decades-long investigation spanning several countries, generations, and two world wars.

At the centre of this story are Alex and Gretl Thompson, who worked for the British Council in Greece and Turkey during the years 1939 to 1946. Their lives intersected with the hidden world of intelligence, diplomacy, wartime politics, and international education. Yet this is not simply a story of wartime service. It is also the story of a marriage, a family shaped by secrecy, and the lasting consequences of decisions made during extraordinary times.

Drawing on extensive research in archives across Britain, Austria, Turkey, Canada, and elsewhere, Denis Thompson reconstructs the lives of his parents and their extended families, including English, Greek, Austrian, Czech, and Spanish relatives. Their experiences unfold against the backdrop of some of the most significant events of the twentieth century.
The book explores themes of abandonment, family division, deception, loyalty, love, loss, rejection, reunion, and guilt. It provides a detailed account of British Council activities in Greece and Turkey during the Second World War while also revealing how world events influenced the lives of ordinary people across several generations.

Part biography, part memoir, part family history, and part historical investigation, The Secret Service Couple is the story of one man's determination to uncover the truth about his parents, understand his own past, and document a family history that might otherwise have been lost.

Above all, it is a true story.