- Growing up, Sue-Ellen’s family worked as secret agents for the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO)
- During undercover operations, Sue-Ellen and her brother acted as spies for her parents
- Now, the grandmother of six has written a book about her experience as a child spy
Here Sue-Ellen, 72, shares her story in her own words
‘Shh,’ my mum Joan, then 34, whispered as I nestled under my bed covers.
‘Goodnight,’ my dad Dudley, then 40, mimed, giving me a goodnight kiss.
Then aged two, my big brother Mark, three, and I always had to be quiet and on our best behaviour.
And we were never allowed to ask questions.
It sounds like we grew up in a strict household, but the reality was much more complex.
My parents were secret agents working for the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).
Dad, who’d served in World War II despite losing his leg in a traffic accident aged 14, was employed by the spy organisation in 1951.
Soon after marrying Dad, Mum joined too.
Their first task was to take part in Operation Smile – a bugging operation where my parents were tasked with gathering information on people passing sensitive information to Russia.
Their apartment block in Darlinghurst, NSW, was filled with other agents too, because the flat below was occupied by a Russian gentleman, Fedor Nosov.
A journalist, he represented the Soviet news agency TASS in Australia, but the Aussie government believed this was just his cover… ASIO suspected he was a Russian spy.
After drilling a hole through the floor, my dad eavesdropped on Fedor’s conversations using a tiny microphone that was hidden in his light fitting.
Meanwhile, Mum would keep my brother and me very quiet so the recording machine could clearly pick up the dialogue from below.
It was on every minute of the day, so silence was mandatory.
Mum cooked, bathed us, and gave orders in mute, between transcribing the audio.
Just like today, children weren’t allowed to be a part of ASIO but Dad quickly realised that, having being born into the operation, Mark and I were the perfect cover.
Who would suspect an average Aussie couple and their two little kids were secret spies?
‘My fake nan was a secret spy.’
When I was three in 1956, my parents were transferred to Queensland.
We spent lots of time at the beach on the Gold Coast with Mum and a woman named Evdokia Petrov, who I was told to say was my grandma.
But in reality Evdokia and her husband Vladimir were Soviet defectors – and Mum and Dad would later reveal that they were in fact Russian spies, working for the KGB – the Soviet intelligence service. My fake nan was a secret spy.
I loved being with Evdokia, who I lovingly nicknamed Peewee.
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However, when Vladimir blew his own cover, we were forced to go on the run to escape the KGB.
On the run for six weeks, we ended up in Noosa.
As children, we’d often drive around playing the most challenging games of I Spy, picking nearly impossible objects such as screws in the car.
It was all part of observing the tiniest details that most people would overlook.
‘That house we just drove by, how many windows did it have? What colour was the roof and how many storeys was it?’ our parents would quiz us, helping us build up our spy skills.
We’d also go on numberplate runs, where we’d drive laps around the block to pick out a suspicious vehicle parked nearby, taking note of the numberplate.
We’d change our outfits for each lap – swapping hats, clothes, our positions in the car and even the toys we were holding – so if anyone spotted us, they’d think it was a different car and family each time.
Dad had a wax kit that he used to take impressions of keys and a leather roll of lock-picking tools.
He also had a tiny camera for taking pictures on the sly.
We also attended political rallies to keep an eye out for suspicious activity.
Dad would have cameras roped around his neck and pretend to be taking pictures of me and Mark.
But he was really collecting intel on potential communists.
‘To me and Mark, our life was normal.’
The biggest treat during our childhood was visiting ASIO’s headquarters, which was hidden on a secret floor in a large office building.
The lift operator knew to only stop the elevator at the secret floor for authorised people.
If others were in the lift, he’d take them to their floor first, before spiriting us to the secret spy level.
To me and Mark, our life was normal.
We never questioned our unique way of living.
By the time Mum had our little sister Amanda in 1958, when I was five, I was at school and allowed to make friends, but my true identity always remained confidential.
The only people we could trust were our parents, and secrecy was crucial to not getting caught.
When my teacher asked what Dad did for a living one day, I had no idea how to respond.
‘Say your dad works for the Attorney General’s department,’ Mum said, explaining it’d be a boring reply and my teacher wouldn’t have further questions.
She was right.
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When I was 17 in 1970, we were absolutely heartbroken when Dad passed away from a massive heart attack.
He was only 47.
The next day two blokes in dark suits came to our house to take Dad’s lock-picking tools and his notebooks.
They even shook Dad’s wooden leg upside down to see if he’d hidden anything inside it.
‘Had Dad faked his death?’
By then Mum had left her job as an ASIO agent and, after taking time to grieve, she got a job at Myer department store.
Part of me wondered if Dad was really dead… or had he faked his death as a front for another secret mission?
Three years later, I moved out of home after finding love with Hugh, then 23.
Confident our relationship was rock solid, I confided in him about my childhood. I’d never ever told a single soul before.
‘I grew up in a family of spies,’ I told him at the dinner table one evening.
He couldn’t believe it.
We married in 1974, and five years later we welcomed our first child, Lachlan, followed by Cameron, in 1981, and Phoebe in 1985.
Our family life was so different to the way I’d grown up.
‘I thought our lives were so normal,’ I’d say to Mum on the phone, but she wouldn’t say much about the matter.
That was until 2011 when the then Prime Minster Julia Gillard gave permission for ASIO history to be recorded, allowing those who’d been involved with the organisation to share their experiences for the first time.
Researchers from the Australian National University and ASIO directors came to interview Mum, then 82.
After the book The Spy Catchers – The Official History of ASIO was published, Mum, my siblings and I were interviewed by journalist Sandra Hogan for another book, With My Little Eye: The Incredible True Story of a Family of Spies in the Suburbs.
When it was released in 2021, I couldn’t believe all the stories and secrets Mum had held close to her heart for decades about the dangerous lives we’d led for so very long.
Sadly, the following year we lost Mum, after she’d battled with dementia.
Mum was 93.
Growing up as a child spy has shaped me into the woman I am today.
Now I’m grandmother to six beautiful grandchildren and, although I’m so proud of my family history, I couldn’t imagine putting my family at risk.
I grew up living on the run, but now I choose my own pace.
