Reviewed by Wendy Lipke
My Mother, The Spy was written by Freda Marnie Nicholls in association with Cindy Dobbin, the daughter of Mercia Masson. Fifty years after her mother’s death Cindy was given a book called Australia’s Spies and their Secrets which mentions her mother. At first ‘Cindy found the idea of her mother being a spy ridiculous. The thought of her strait-laced prim and proper mother being a cloak and dagger spy was ludicrous’ (8). However, remembering some of the papers she had stored after her mother’s death she decided to fill out the necessary forms to try to get some information from ASIO.
This book tells of Cindy’s life and journey in discovering information about the life of a mother, who to a young girl was very distant, often absent, who worked day and night with little time for her daughter. Her mother disappeared from Cindy’s life when she was two years old and she was not to see her again until she was about nine years old when, Cindy believes, it was much more socially acceptable for a middle-aged woman to have a child and be ‘widowed’, rather than be seen as a spinster (123).
Cindy was to learn that her mother, as a journalist, had the right skills and strong connections to other journalists, artists and high society people to be of interest to ASIO at the time. Her job allowed access to the inner workings of a range of networks. She became one of the longest serving undercover agents, working for the security services for nearly thirteen years (25).
The book includes sixteen pages of black and white photos of Cindy and ones containing her mother. The information in the book is divided into three parts- Life As a Spy, Exposure and Aftermath. There are seventy-five chapters, but each contains no more than eight pages with the majority only three or four pages long. Inside these chapters the reader learns about the political history in Australia during the Cold War years, the paranoia about Communism and atomic weapons and the Royal Commission on Espionage which followed the defection of Vladimir and Evdokia Petrov. Details of Mercia’s life as a spy, whom she mixed with and what was said that she reported back to higher authorities are given in detail.
Interspersed in the text are small sections of primary resource material in lighter type. The chapters switch between the daughter’s journey and how she feels, her mother’s activities and the world situation and Australian politics at the time.
Many pages are devoted to the proceedings of the Royal Commission where Mercia took the stand as a witness. However, it soon became clear that those with much to lose were determined to protect themselves and so needed a scapegoat. Because it was obvious that the pressure Cindy’s mother was under began to affect her emotionally and mentally, they twisted information around to accuse her of passing on information to the wrong people.
Although no prosecutions were recommended in the final report and her name was withheld, journalists were still able to expose her in an article after the event. Being the fighter that she was, she managed to get on with her life and keep all this from her daughter.
Through this whole research process, Cindy had discovered many things about her mother and why she herself never felt accepted by the extended family, but she still has many unanswered questions. What she did discover was that ASIO remained concerned for her mother after the Commission and that, despite her ability to tell incredible stories about herself, her mother’s colleagues seem to have held her in considerable esteem.
This is an interesting story about part of Australia’s history, the relationship between a woman and her daughter and having the need to feel wanted to help one’s country.
My Mother, The Spy
(2023)
by Cindy Dobbin & Freda Marnie Nicholls
Allen & Unwin
ISBN:978-1-76106-728-0
$34.99; 318pp