Former KGB double agent hid in plain sight in Surrey

Samuel Montgomery News Reporter. 

Tim Sigsworth News Reporter

Published 26 May 2026

Twice a week, Anton Kelsen sidled into a pew at his local pub and ordered the quiche with a double Bruichladdich single malt

There was nothing to suggest that the quiet and convivial gentleman who always greeted the staff with a cheery wave was anything other than an ordinary retiree.

Paul Baker, the deputy manager of The Refectory in Godalming, Surrey, who served Kelsen at his favourite table for 12 years until his death last March, believed he was a retired scientist.

It was perhaps only his “carers” – 6ft 2in and bald with crooked noses – which could have given away that Kelsen was in fact Oleg Gordievsky, Britain’s greatest Cold War double agent.

“I’m gobsmacked,” Mr Baker told The Telegraph on finding out his regular’s true identity, “we got on very well.

“There were sometimes a couple Geordie lads who were with him – they didn’t look like carers, they were bald and had sideways noses.”

Gordievsky, the son of a Russian intelligence officer, was recruited by the KGB soon after university and was posted to Denmark where he handled undercover agents.

He turned his back on communism after witnessing the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968.

Recruited by MI6 on a badminton court in Copenhagen in 1972, Gordievsky would spend more than a decade passing on information during the Cold War, most notably averting nuclear confrontation by persuading the Soviet leaders against a preemptive strike after the Kremlin had misinterpreted a Nato military exercise as preparations for an attack.

In 1985, Gordievsky, then a KGB colonel and bureau chief in London, was recalled to Moscow, drugged and interrogated on suspicion of being a mole.

After a prepared escape plan codenamed Operation Pimlico, Gordievsky walked by a bakery holding a Safeway bag and bumped into an MI6 officer eating a Mars bar who then bundled him into the boot of a car and drove him across the border into Finland.

The former spy would go on to conduct television interviews, receive awards and write an autobiography, all while taking on a pseudonym and living out his secret retirement in suburban Surrey.

Mr Baker said Gordievsky had been kind and unassuming in his latter years.

“He was quiet but polite,” the barman said. “Although he could be grumpy if he didn’t get his table.

“He would always sit at table B4 – just by the bar. We had to move someone off it once.”

Mr Baker said Gordievsky celebrated his birthday at the pub and would dine there as much as three times a week until his death.

“We were never told he had passed,” he said, adding: “We often talked about him.

“We never got to the bottom of what he did for a living.”

Neighbours on the quiet road where Gordievsky lived in a chalet-style house near a cricket pitch told The Telegraph they had kept his secret for decades.

“He went by Anton but everybody knew who he was and after a while we all called him Oleg,” said Judy Collins, adding: “It was supposed to be a massive secret but everyone on the road knew, though it didn’t go further than the road.”

Mrs Collins, a mother of five who has lived in the area for 25 years, said Gordievsky had been outgoing during Perestroika and Glasnost under Mikhail Gorbachev.

The former teacher said: “At the start he was more gregarious, we went to a party there.

“He had a sauna which was great fun. He enjoyed the company of people; he was a social animal.”

She said Gordievsky would do a lot of exercise, and could often be seen in his Lycra cycling up and down the steep Crownpits Lane.

But the rise of Vladimir Putin, fracturing of relations with Russia and the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, an ex-KGB spy, in London, followed by the attempted assassination with Novichok of Sergei Skripal, a double agent, in Salisbury, spooked Gordievsky.

“He got more worried, he became more withdrawn,” Mrs Collins said, adding: “Towards the end of his life he had bodyguards the whole time.

“I bumped into him once on the road and he said someone had tried to poison him. He showed his hands which were swollen.”

In November 2007, Gordievsky was taken by ambulance from his home in Surrey to a hospital where he reportedly spent 34 hours unconscious, later suspecting he had been poisoned with thallium by “rogue elements in Moscow”.

“It is the downside to being a heroic man,” Ms Collins said, adding that he installed security lights but the threat did not stop him going to lunch regularly at The Refectory and Piazza Firenze in Godalming.

“Two years before his death, we knocked on the door and asked if he wanted to come over for a drink,” she said. “He initially said he couldn’t but then he came out in his wheelchair with his two minders and had a drink with us in the garden.

“He always had a twinkle in his eye. He was a good man.”

Peter, 93, another neighbour, said he had recognised Gordievsky from the television when he moved into the area.

He said: “My wife was a secretary in MI6. I mentioned to her that I recognised him and lo and behold someone came scuttling down from the office and swore me to secrecy.”

Peter, who withheld his surname, said Gordievsky always dressed smartly and drove a BMW 3-series until it was stolen on a visit to west London.

“He was quite social early on. He came over for drinks with his wife once. Thatcher had managed to get her out,” he said. “One of the saddest things was that his wife never forgave him for not telling her what was going on. I think I would probably have taken the same decision.”

His wife, Leila, had been unaware of his defection and had been on holiday during the time of his escape. She was detained, interrogated and never forgave Gordievsky.

In the early days, Gordievsky became a regular at The Merry Harriers pub in Hambledon, Hampshire, where he would enjoy a lunchtime sandwich with a pint of bitter.

Colin Beasley, who, with his sister Sue, took over from their father Ron, told the village website: “He usually sat at the small round table by the gap between the public bar (now the restaurant) and the saloon bar.

“He was always polite and friendly but he never spoke much about himself.”

Rob Fallon, another neighbour, who works in tech, said Gordievsky had brought an entourage to Godalming.

The 51-year-old said: “There would be minders following him around, cars doing laps. People here are quite proud of it.

“He was a massive hero. It was a fascinating thing to live next to and we are all upset, we miss having him on our road.”

After four decades, the alias of Anton Kelsen finally slipped when the name was published alongside Gordievsky’s in an order of service at St Paul’s Cathedral this month.

Gordievsky was listed as a companion of the Order of St Michael and St George – an honour also bestowed on James Bond, the fictional spy in Ian Fleming’s novels

Yuan Yi Zhu

@yuanyi_z

A pleasure to attend the service of the Order of St Michael and St George. The King looked great. Also, they’ve doxxed posthumously Oleg Gordievsky’s assumed name?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/05/26/revealed-the-secret-suburban-life-of-britains-greatest-cold/