Frances Bernie was a Catholic schoolgirl raised in Sydney by a couple from England. So how did she end up a Soviet spy working for Australia’s foreign minister leaking Australia’s and Britain’s secrets to the Russians?
While she was born and raised in Sydney, “Sally” was so devoted to Stalinist Russia that she became a Soviet spy and infiltrated a US government agency.
In 1918, Melbourne was celebrating the end of WWI, unaware an insidious new war had just begun. That’s when a new drug – cocaine – was first detected by Melbourne police, and began to wreak havoc.
Many Melburnians know Chinatown’s Heffernan Lane as a quiet place to grab an after work drink, but for almost 80 years that very street was a haunt for some of the worst characters our city had to offer.
Its name is barely known today, but a century ago Fleet St was a magnet for Melbourne’s most notorious criminals and the frequent scene of shootings, beatings and wild assaults, so how did it meet its demise? LISTEN TO THE PODCAST
The Collis family caused mayhem for decades with their sly grog shops and gang violence until authorities were finally forced to declare their homes condemned to run them out of town. LISTEN TO THE PODCAST
Her name is barely known today, but the formidable Ann Shiell was a powerful crime boss, slum landlord, brothel madam and controller of gangs of thieves in Melbourne in the late 1800s. LISTEN TO THE PODCAST
As a wealthy socialite, Enid Lindeman was the last person you’d expect to be an underground smuggler for the French Resistance in WWII. And that’s exactly how she managed to sneak escaped Allied soldiers into her safe house mansion dressed as maids.
Scandal-plagued socialite Enid Lindeman outlived four husbands, earned the nickname “Lady Killmore”, and swanned around with a pet hyrax perched on her shoulder and a cheetah in her Bentley.
As the wealthy owner of a string of opulent brothels in the notorious Little Lon red light district, Madame Brussels was dubbed the “worst and wickedest woman in Melbourne”.
Original URL: https://www.heraldsun.com.au/journalists/jen-kelly/page/22