People and Personalities

Brian Edwards has had a life with its fair share of twists and turns.

Now living in Luton, he lived and worked as a businessman and entrepreneur in post-glasnost Russia and also in Romania, a time when he was watched by both the KGB and Special Branch.

Brian's second book

Before that, he worked in senior positions in local government in London and it was during this period that he was accused of corruption, and spent months proving his innocence, which included his standing trial at London's famous Old Bailey.

Now retired, he has put it all into a book.

Like something out of Kafka, Brian shows just how quickly circumstances can conspire to send an innocent person’s life spiralling out of control. His book reveals how he survived it all, cleared his name, and lived to tell his tale of triumph over adversity. He told us more:

What were you arrested for?

Brian: In 1975, I was working in London as A Chief Building Surveyor. I’d been planning for over a year to emigrate to New Zealand, and we’d sold the house and the car and the furniture was all packed and gone.

Then there was an investigation into the staff of my department regarding corruption. I was invited down to the police station thinking initially that I would just be telling them the procedures and how the department was set up, but they interviewed me and accused me of taking stuff for a bribe and this went on for months really.

In the end it settled down a bit and I though it had all cleared up and I was very near to going to New Zealand. Then, almost as we were actually leaving the house, they invited me down to the police station and arrested me for corruption. So then I had a huge battle to get to the High Court to get my bail overturned so that I could emigrate.

Making some sort of legal history we did manage to emigrate, although obviously I had to return when asked to and I had put up all the sale proceeds from the house for security and off we went - but it was [all sorted out] within hours of the boat sailing so we had to rush down to the docks at Southampton get on the boat. It was literally held up for me.

So you went to New Zealand but came back for your trial?

Brian: Yes, I promised to come back under my terms of bail and when we got to New Zealand they had heard about it – my new boss had heard about it on the car radio which was a bit of a shock for him – so they restricted my stay to six months.

We started off there living very happily and everything was wonderful. Then we had a letter from the court saying that I must return so I reluctantly said goodbye to my family and came back. Then I discovered that nobody knew anything about it and I had to hang around for another two years before I actually had a trial. In fact, I had to go to the court to persuade the judge to try me.

Could it not just have been dropped, or did you feel that by this stage you wanted a trial to prove your innocence?

Brian: Well, when I came back, the police interviewed me again. Before that they had only charged me with receiving material as a corrupt gift, but then they accused me of taking money. After all this period of time they suddenly came up with this and so I think they were faced with me suddenly returning to the scene and were highly embarrassed and had to justify it. Then the whole thing hung around and I had to go to the court to persuade them to bring the trial forward.

How long did it take, once you finally got there?

Brian: We went in to the Old Bailey on the 14 November 1977 and on the 8 March 1978 I was cleared totally.

After that, you worked in a job that took you all around the world including the Soviet Union and Romania – do you ever look back and wish you’d had less prominent jobs or ones where the KGB weren’t watching you?

Brian: I’ve often thought that but I think it would have been rather a mundane and predictable sort of life if all these misfortunes hadn’t happened. I was privileged to work in the Soviet Union and had a lot of Russian friends who were very good to me and had a lot of experiences there and in Romania later on and these would never had happened if I’d had a mundane life!

Why were they watching you?

Brian: Working first in London in major boroughs, which were extreme left wing boroughs - Camden, Islington and the like - and then going to Russia working in a job which nobody knew about – it was a closed town and a very secret job - I imagine everybody got a bit excited because they probably thought I must be a raving communist or whatever.

How have you ended up in Luton?

Brian: Where I live was my mother’s house and when she passed away I took over the flat.

You have now put all your stories together in “To Romania with Love” and your second book “Troubles, Trials and Travels  - Three London Boroughs, the Old Bailey, The KGB and Me”, why have you decided to do this?

Brian: Well when I went to New Zealand the two youngest children didn’t really appreciate what was happening about the arrest and all the fuss and bother and so many other things happened that were almost as bad in a sense so I thought I’d put it all down in a book when it was mostly finished, and I was retired I put it all together.

Who do you think will be interested in reading it?

Brian: Anybody who thinks [that being in] local government is a quiet life! Life now is a bit boring in comparison – it’s all predictable now!