15 Facts About Greville Wynne

Greville Wynne acted as a courier to transport top-secret information to London from the Soviet agent Oleg Penkovsky.

Penkovsky was executed the following year and Greville Wynne was sentenced to eight years imprisonment.

Greville Wynne was born in Wrockwardine Wood, Telford, Shropshire, England, only son of Ethelbert Greville Wynne and Ada, nee Pritchard.

Greville Wynne was raised in Ystrad Mynach, South Wales, with a "modest background".

Greville Wynne's father was a foreman in an engineering workshop.

Greville Wynne struggled with dyslexia and left school at 14 to work for an electrical contractor.

Greville Wynne then worked at a telephone factory as an apprentice.

Greville Wynne married Sheila Beaton in 1946; the couple had a son, Andrew, born in 1952.

Greville Wynne's business extended into Eastern Bloc countries from 1955.

In November 1960, Greville Wynne was recruited by MI6 and asked to make a sales trip to Moscow, where he made contact with Oleg Penkovsky, a high-ranking GRU officer.

Greville Wynne later became an intermediary and courier for Penkovsky, smuggling top-secret Soviet intelligence to London on return from his frequent trips to the USSR.

Penkovsky was sentenced to death and executed by firing squad, though Greville Wynne believed he died by suicide in prison.

Greville Wynne struggled with depression and alcoholism in the aftermath of imprisonment.

Greville Wynne died of throat cancer at the Cromwell Hospital in London on 28 February 1990, aged 70.

Later in life, Greville Wynne wrote two books about his work for British intelligence: The Man from Moscow and The Man from Odessa.