12-05-2025
On the trail of my dad, the runaway MI6 agent
One summer day in 1958 John Bryan Wood announced to his wife, who was sitting in the garden with their new baby, that he was nipping out for a loaf of bread. But instead of walking into nearby Woking in search of supplies, Wood drove to Southampton and boarded the RMS Homeric, bound for Canada. With him he took his wife's passport (so she couldn't follow) and their three-year-old son, Jonathan. What was doubly odd was that, far from being a devoted dad, Wood spent most of his life disowning his many offspring, passing them off as nephews, nieces or step-children. In another way, though, this reckless behaviour was entirely typical of 'JBW', as he was always known. It wasn't just the string of wives
