‘Nobby’ Clarke: Churchill’s Backroom Boy

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'Nobby' Clarke, after leaving Greenwich Hospital School, fought in France and Italy during the First World War, winning a Military Cross. Settling in Bedford, he set up the Low Loading Company in the 1920s. His inventive skills came to the attention of Stuart Macrae, entrusted by the War Office at the beginning of the Second World War in manufacturing explosives. Nobby went on to command a special training school at Brickendonbury Manor, near Hertford, where secret agents destined for occupied Europe learned some deadly skills. His son John, who attended Bedford School, described life in wartime Bedford and provided a detailed insight into his father's activities. Using these, Macrae's autobiography and other contemporary sources, Bernard O'Connor sheds light on one of Bedford's lesser known wartime heroes.