We were delighted to hear from Old Hymerian, Thomas Brett recently - one of 5 of the Brett family that have attended Hymers.

I thought I’d share a rather nice Hymers connection to Ben Macintyre’s new book Redwood, which is about to be released.The book tells the extraordinary story of Vladimir Kuzichkin, a senior KGB officer who defected to the West in the early 1980s, and the MI6 operation that followed.

One of the people who features in the story is my uncle, David Brett, an Old Hymerian. David was working as a British vice-consul in Tehran when he was introduced to Kuzichkin. His involvement helped establish the initial contact that eventually led to Kuzichkin being recruited by MI6. The intelligence that followed was hugely important in frustrating Soviet ambitions in Iran and, according to Macintyre, may even have helped avoid a potentially very dangerous confrontation between the USA and USSR. David left Hymers in 1970 and went on to University College Oxford to study History. He then spent his career in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and is now retired and living in Washington DC.

There’s quite a strong Brett family connection with Hymers. David and my dad, John Brett, were both at the school in the 1960s, and my brothers James and Christopher Brett and I all followed in their footsteps, attending the school between us from the late 1980s through to 1999.

 Read more about the book here

Old Hymerian, Thomas Brett 1989-99